# Population Genetics > Autosomal Genetics >  Neolithic Hunter-Gatherers from Sweden: Super Saami?

## Dagne

I found an increasingly interesting thread on http://www.forumbiodiversity.com/sho...=32935&page=13 

According to STRUCTURE K3 analysis by Vadim Verenich Swedish Neolithic H/G could be proto-Saami!

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## ElHorsto

It is nice to see the two main modals of Europe from K7 and K12 confirmed: Basque/Sardinian vs. Finnic/Baltic.

But the "Saami" component is strange. It is strange how Ötzi and even more Gok4 appear to be very much Saami in K3, despite the Saami component primarily stretches to north Asia. Sardinians are much less "saami". I doubt whether K3 is really so useful. It seems like an arbitrary split of the "North_european" mix. Possibly there are equally valid alternative splits, of which we are not aware of.

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## MOESAN

what is 'saami component'? and K3 is very litlle informative, on another hand but I keep in mind that Saami people have a western component in their mtDNA, uneasy to weight because it seams there had been a big drift in their mt DNA (two folds polarized: Western almost 'iberic' (paleo or mesolithic? after LHGM?) and N.Siberian (proto-Finns?)

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## Jackson

Really interesting news - Looking forward to seeing more about this, cheers for the link.

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## Maciamo

It is to be expected that Mesolithic Swedes appear to be Proto-Saami since the Saami are the direct descendants of the pre-Indo-European inhabitants of Scandinavia. They belong primarily to Y-haplogroups I1, N1c1 and R1a, and to mt-haplogroups U5b, V and Z.

If you are referring to the Neolithic Gok4 sample though, that would be in complete contradiction of what the autosomal analysis says, since the Saami are overwhelmingly 'Northeast European' in term of admixtures.

Actually the fact that that Mesolithic Swedes were so Northeastern, and that the Saami carry R1a lineages alongisde I1 and N1ca, make me wonder whether a small percentage of R1a might not already have been present in the Mesolithic population of Scandinavia and in Western Europe. That would explain why consistently older subclades of R1a (SRY10831.2 and M17) are found in these regions.

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## Dagne

I am not very sure if I can just copy pictures of another forum ... I hope the author, Vadim Verenich Forumbiodiversity won't mind. Anyway, this is STRUCTURE K3 where Otzi and Swedish Hunter Gatherers and Famer are compared to modern populations:

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## Dagne

The Reds (both Neolithic Gotlanders) are closest to Saami, Mari, Mordovians, Udmurts, Komi... At the same time some red is contained by all others populations...

Can you guess who are according to this hypothesis green and blue ?
http://www.forumbiodiversity.com/sho...=32935&page=13 post no 124

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## Maciamo

> I am not very sure if I can just copy pictures of another forum ... I hope the author, Vadim Verenich Forumbiodiversity won't mind. Anyway, this is STRUCTURE K3 where Otzi and Swedish Hunter Gatherers and Famer are compared to modern populations:


What I see here is that the Swedish hunter-gatherers are 100% red and the closest modern equivalent are the Saami, just as I had said above.

Ötzi and the Neolithic Swedish farmer are both green and red only, but with a strongly dominant green component (70-75%). The green looks Mediterranean.

The blue component is probably Indo-European, and was completely absent in all four Mesolithic to Neolithic European samples. All modern populations have blue, although Gyp (Gypsies ?) and especially Srd (Sardinians, I guess) have very little of it.

The fact that the Saami have over 15% of blue would mean that R1a wasn't present in Mesolithic/Neolithic Scandinavia and that it arrived later (with the Corded Ware Culture). If that is so, true modern Scandinavians would only have arisen from the time R1b entered Scandinavia. This would also confirm that R1b was the original branch of Italo-Celto-Germanic language speakers. The Saami lack R1b and are not Germanic, nor even IE speakers. The Finns also lack R1b (if we exclude a small amount of recent Swedish settlers on the western coast) and are not IE speakers.

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## Maciamo

> The Reds (both Neolithic Gotlanders) are closest to Saami, Mari, Mordovians, Udmurts, Komi... At the same time some red is contained by all others populations...


Interesting that the populations with the highest ratio of red are all Uralic speakers. That may have been the language group spoken in Scandinavia too before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans. Funny how almost everybody else has roughly 10-15% of red too. Probably a Paleolithic/Mesolithic remnant. Perhaps linked to mtDNA U4 and U5.

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## Dagne

Yes, I absolutely agree! 

the only thing is that according to current archeological interpretations the influence of Corded Ware (Indo Europeans) in Lithuania is rather insignificant (differently as previously thought by Gimbutas), whereas according to STRUCTURE K3 Lithuanians are more than 2/3 blue.

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## razor

> Yes, I absolutely agree! 
> 
> the only thing is that according to current archeological interpretations the influence of Corded Ware (Indo Europeans) in Lithuania is rather insignificant (differently as previously thought by Gimbutas), whereas according to STRUCTURE K3 Lithuanians are more than 2/3 blue.


Could you give some details about these current archaeological interpretations? If Corded Ware was insignificant, how would the IE influence have alternatively come to Lithuania do they say?

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## Dagne

The hypothesis is that there weren't any major population replacements. Inhabitants of Lithuania are basically the same people who settled in the territory after the ice age from the Iberian and Balkan Refugia. The later influence of Cunda (Narva) and Corded Ware weren’t that extensive as thought previously. 

Again, this theory has to be confirmed genetically. 

I heard there is one major project going on where a representative sample of more than 1000 individuals from all Lithuanian ethnic regions will get a full genome sequencing in order to compile a referent genome for a Lithuanian which later could be compared against other populations in Europe. This project is due to be completed in 2015.

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## razor

> The hypothesis is that there weren't any major population replacements. Inhabitants of Lithuania are basically the same people who settled in the territory after the ice age from the Iberian and Balkan Refugia. The later influence of Cunda (Narva) and Corded Ware weren’t that extensive as thought previously. 
> 
> Again, this theory has to be confirmed genetically. 
> 
> I heard there is one major project going on where a representative sample of more than 1000 individuals from all Lithuanian ethnic regions will get a full genome sequencing in order to compile a referent genome for a Lithuanian which later could be compared against other populations in Europe. This project is due to be completed in 2015.


So the idea is that the introduction of the IE language by Corded Ware (and its eventual victory over Uralic-speaking competitors)was not accompanied by very significant autosomal shifts. That seems quite possible. There were other examples elsewhere. Hungary and Turkey come to mind.

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## Dagne

> So the idea is that the introduction of the IE language by Corded Ware (and its eventual victory over Uralic-speaking competitors)was not accompanied by very significant autosomal shifts. That seems quite possible. There were other examples elsewhere. Hungary and Turkey come to mind.


It is not clear what language the autochthonous inhabitants spoke. 
If the theory is correct and there weren't any major shifts, Lithuanians autosomally do not match Uralic speaking populations. 

So the theory regarding the language is that even during Mesolithic the inhabitants of Lithuania spoke some sort of proto Indo-European (inasmuch as they were a type of Northern Indo Europeans who arrived to these part of the world with the first post-Ice age migrations). 

Narva culture who also lived in the Lithuanian territory, however in different locations than local autochthons, were different anthropologically (they might have likely spoken a variant of proto-Uralic). The later wave of immigrants were the Corded Ware who were again Indo-Europeans, but already of some Southern Branch. Their language was also a version of proto-Indo-European.

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## razor

I'm afraid "post glacial" or mesolithic proto-Indoeuropean isn't in the cards for the overwhelming majority of professional linguists. And I don't see how gene analysis can prove this. OK thanks for the other info.

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## Dagne

> I'm afraid "post glacial" or mesolithic proto-Indoeuropean isn't in the cards for the overwhelming majority of professional linguists. And I don't see how gene analysis can prove this. OK thanks for the other info.


Yes, I know, but anyway, the archaeological evidence tells that autochthonous inhabitants were not replaced and who they were linguistically we may not know... I hope there will be more of autosomal testing of early people in Europe and that may disclose whom they compare most to modern populations.

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## zanipolo

> Yes, I know, but anyway, the archaeological evidence tells that autochthonous inhabitants were not replaced and who they were linguistically we may not know... I hope there will be more of autosomal testing of early people in Europe and that may disclose whom they compare most to modern populations.


don't you think these baltic/finnic people moved further inland than just the coast. I doubt the iranic tribes had reached these inland central areas at that time

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## Dagne

The current debate is that the influence of Corded Ware (Indo Eureopean) is much less than previously thought. 

Regarding Baltic/Finnic (Narva culture) they might have been similar to Gotland's hunter-gatherers " Super Saami". I think according to archaeological excavation some of the individuals belonging to Narva culture have quite clear mongoloid features. It is described as "metis" mongoloid features.

This is what Wiki says: 

"At first it was believed that Narva culture ended with appearance of the Corded Ware culture. However, newer research extended it up to the Bronze Age. As Narva culture spanned several millenniums and encompassed a large territory, archaeologists attempted to subdivide the culture into regions or periods. For example, in Lithuania two regions are distinguished: southern (under influence of the Neman culture) and western (with major settlements found in Šventoji). There is an academic debate what ethnicity represented the Narva culture: Finno-Ugrians or Europids, preceding arrival of the Indo-Europeans. It is also unclear how the Narva culture fits with the arrival of the Indo-Europeans (Corded Ware and Globular Amphora cultures) and formation of the Baltic tribes."

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## Jaska

> It is not clear what language the autochthonous inhabitants spoke. 
> If the theory is correct and there weren't any major shifts, Lithuanians autosomally do not match Uralic speaking populations. 
> 
> So the theory regarding the language is that even during Mesolithic the inhabitants of Lithuania spoke some sort of proto Indo-European (inasmuch as they were a type of Northern Indo Europeans who arrived to these part of the world with the first post-Ice age migrations). 
> 
> Narva culture who also lived in the Lithuanian territory, however in different locations than local autochthons, were different anthropologically (they might have likely spoken a variant of proto-Uralic). The later wave of immigrants were the Corded Ware who were again Indo-Europeans, but already of some Southern Branch. Their language was also a version of proto-Indo-European.


Linguistic evidence does not allow so deep linguistic continuity for IE, and genetic evidence cannot overrule it.

At the recent years it has been strongly argued why Uralic language cannot have arrived in the Baltic Sea region as early as was thought earlier; now it seems that it only started to spread from Volga-Kama fork around 2000 BC. (I cannot post links until I have posted 10 posts.)

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