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Origins. An overview of the origins and em … Origins. An overview of the origins and emergence of the Saami and Saami culture.
Background (40,000-9500 B.C.). Modern man (Homo sapiens) made his appearance in Europe during the last Ice Age between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago during the Palaeolithic Stone Age. The Ice Age was at its coldest around 23,000-15,000 B.C. The cold forced communities that had hunted large game animals in the relatively abundant tundra-steppe environment to withdraw from central Europe and central Russia towards the south. From the western half of central Europe people retreated to the southwest, from the eastern half to the southeast, and from central Russia due south. The severance of the east-west network of connections in central Europe that had existed for thousands of years led to the separate regional development of cultural features, and there is also reason to assume that a similar course of development took place with regard to language and physical characteristics. As the climate gradually warmed, people slowly started to return to central Europe from both the southwest and the southeast. A subsequently extinct language - or languages - was presumably spoken on the western side of central Europe. On the eastern side and in eastern Europe, a language (or languages) was spoken which could have led to the emergence of Proto-Uralic, the distant ancestor of the Saami language.
The Ice Age ended around 9500 B.C. with a sudden rise in temperature. At the time, the Continental Ice Sheet still covered most of eastern and northern Fennoscandia. As a result of climatic change, the periglacial tundra-steppe environment and many of its faunal species disappeared, and the present vegetation zones with their characteristic animal species began to form and spread northward. Among the human populations, the adaptation required by the ending of the Ice Age led to a shift from Palae olithic culture into Mesolithic. By the beginning of the Mesolithic Stone Age, human occupation had, in the north, extended to central Britain, the North Sea basin (the present sea bed), Denmark, Skåne, Lithuania and central Russia. Communities began to move north along with the vegetation zones.
The settlement of Scandinavia (9500-7000 B.C.). At the end of the Ice Age, most of Fennoscandia was still covered by water and the continental ice sheet. Suitable areas for human settlement were offered by the Norwegian coast, where pioneer settlement appears to have arrived from the North Sea land, and by the southernmost parts of Norway and Sweden, where the pioneer settlement came from north Germany through Denmark. In the coastal region, where the conditions of the time resembled those of Greenland s present ice-free coastal zone, settlement spread rapidly as far as the Varanger Fjord and the Rybachy Peninsula. These conditions permitted the southern Fosna culture and the more northern Komsa culture to become established in the coastal region. Those communities that migrated northward through the hinterland made slower progress and did not reach the Arctic regions of the Nordic countries until much later.
These movements constituted the post-Ice Age population of Scandinavia, from which the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians on the one hand and the Saami of the Scandinavian Peninsula on the other are descended. As this pioneer population of Scandinavia originated in the western side of central Europe, it must have spoken some unknown ancient European language. Later developments led to the adoptionof Indo-European languages in the south and Uralic languages in the north.
The settlement of eastern Fennoscandia (9000-7400 B.C.). By the end of the Ice Age, settlement had returned to the latitude of Lithuania and the upper reaches of the Volga River in eastern central and eastern Europe. The northern and north-eastern regions of eastern Europe were uninhabited tundra, and it is therefore impossible to locate the origins of the Komsa culture of north Scandinavia in that direction. Nor does the available material contain anything that might point to pioneer settlement from the areas east of the Ural Mountains. The Sviderian culture, on the other hand, played an important rolein the western parts of the eastern region, where influence also infiltrated from the western side of central Europe, from the Ahrensburgian culture. In central Russia it was mainly a question of settlement that had come directly from the south. The communities of mammoth hunters of southern Russia had disintegrated by the end of the Ice Age, and new Mesolithic settlers arrived.
The emergence of Mesolithic settlement in central and northern Russia is marked by the spread of a post-Sviderian cultural expression. It is possible that thisculture also contained elements of the language from which Proto-Uralic was formed. An alternative explanation is that these elements came from southern Russia, but not, however, from outside eastern Europe. By 9000 B.C., when the Mesolithic cultural regions had become established, settlement had spread northward from the upper reaches of the Volga and Daugava rivers to a line running from Pärnu in Estonia past the southern end of Lake Onega to Lake Lacha in Russia. Human settlement spread towards the northwest, reaching the latitude of present-day Inari around 7300 B.C. Finds from northern Sweden indicate that there was a population movement there from Finland in Mesolithic times.
This migration formed the post-glacial founder population of eastern Fennoscandia, from which the Finns and Karelians on the one hand and the Saami on the other are descended. As the pioneer inhabitants of eastern Fennoscandia originated on the eastern side, they must have spoken a language that contained elements from which Proto-Uralic was derived. The populations of the eastern and western sides of central Europe thus met in northern Scandinavia.
Developments in Scandinavia (7000-1700 B.C.). The pre-history of the population of Scandinavia reached its next watershed c. 4000 B.C., when agriculture developed in southern Sweden as far as the border of broad-leaved trees (approximately 60°N). This boundary became an economic and cultural border, south of which a Scandinavian peasant society began to develop, and north of which the Saami hunter-gatherer society evolved. This boundary remained almost unchanged for several thousand years until the Iron Age.
Around 2800 B.C., the agriculturally oriented Corded Ware culture spread from the south as far as the above-mentioned boundary, and its features penetrated northwards along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. It has been claimed that the spread of the Corded Ware culture into different parts of central and northern Europe was connected to an Indo-European migration, although other explanations have also been proffered. Later, in the Bronze Age (the Bronze Age in Scandinavia is also known as the Proto-Germanic Age), i.e. from 1700 B.C. onwards, southern centres of settlement, some of which were powerful, formed along the coast of Norrland. A similar course of development took place along the Norwegian coast, where the southern influence extended as far as Tromsø. The separate and linguistically unknown indigenous population of the northern zone preserved its traditional hunter-gatherer culture and did not, for example adopt the use of ? ceramics from its neighbours, even though finds indicate that contacts were maintained across the border. The situation changed considerably as the resultof a wave of influences from eastern Fennoscandia c. 1900 B.C. (see below).
Developments in eastern Fennoscandia (7400-1900 B.C.). In eastern Europe, the area between the upper reaches of the Volga and the River Oka began at an early stage to produce a demographic and cultural surplus, and from it repeated wavesof influence spread especially in a northwestly direction, ultimately reaching eastern Fennoscandia. These currents are most clearly reflected in the archaeological evidence by the spread of new types of ceramics, which began around 6000 B.C. The spread of these influences reached its northern limit along a line approximately following the Arctic Circle. As in central Scandinavia, here too the boundary remained almost unchanged for several thousand years. During the Stone Age, the indigenous population of northern Scandinavia, who spoke an unknown language, had a unique culture into which hardly any outside innovations were absorbed.
It can arguably be assumed that the area between the upper Volga and the River Oka was the focus of Uralic and Finno-Ugric development. Consequently, these waves of influence appear to have brought with them increasing Finno-Ugric linguistic influences. The most important event with regard to the spread of Finno-Ugric culture in eastern Fennoscandia took place around 3900 B.C. with a wave of cultural influence that is represented in so-called Typical Combed Ware, or ? Combed Ware Style 2. Its origins lay in the central Russian tradition of the Lyalovo culture. The wave of influence of Typical Comb Ware has been interpreted as a migration that established in eastern Fennoscandia (and the northern Baltic regions) a Finno-Ugric language that later developed into Proto-Finnic and Proto-Saami.
Corded Ware culture (3200-2300 B.C.). The Corded Ware culture spread into the Baltic regions and southwestern Finland as earlyas c. 3200 B.C. It differed in almost all its features from the Combed Ware culture of the Baltic region and Finland. The unfavourable conditions in Finland forced the new settlers to give up farming, and they became assimilated into the indigenous Combed Ware hunter-gatherer culture. The result was a new cultural configuration combining the main features of the Corded Ware culture with the Combed Ware hunter-gatherer economy. At the same time, a distinct cultural boundary arose, ethnic in character, with the easterncultural area lying to the northeast of it. As in Sweden, some features of the Corded Ware culture infiltrated north along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. In the eastern cultural area of Finland, whose archaeological record of this period is characterized byAsbestos Ceramics, the traditional Combed Ware hunter-gatherer economy and contacts with central Russia lived on. The northernboundary followed the previously established borderline.
The influx of the Corded Ware culture thus divided eastern Fennoscandia into two cultural areas, and this divisionremained. The western area became associated with the European agrarian community materially and partly ideologically as well, although agriculture itself still remained marginal. The spread of the Corded Ware culture, presumably connected with an Indo-European movement, also spread Indo-European loan words into the language of the western cultural area, which nevertheless remained Finno-Ugric and began to develop into Proto-Finnic. In the eastern cultural area, where the development led to Proto-Saami, only a few such loan words were adopted.
The Bronze Age (1900/1700-600/500 B.C.). The contacts of the western cultural area of eastern Fennoscandia were above all with the Baltic region and Scandinavia. During the Bronze Age (1700-500 B.C.), Scandinavian influence was marked in the coastal regions of southwestern Finland. The overall aspect of the culture became established in a characteristic peasant-farmer society, and the language, which was to develop into Proto-Finnic, absorbed Proto-Germanic loan words and other linguistic features. Differences with regard to the eastern cultural area were heightened, although the finds clearly show that there were regular contacts of an ethnic nature between groups. Centres of settlement in the western cultural area formed on the Gulf of Bothnia, as alsohappened in Sweden..
The Bronze Age (1900-600 B.C.) was an equally important period for the eastern cultural area. The textile ceramic influence that originated from central Russia, presumably a movement that extended north as far as the province of Kainuu in Finland (65°N), brought with it modest agricultural activities and bronze artefacts. However, the local population, who made asbestos-tempered ceramics and lived in a hunter-gatherer economy, managed to survive despite the new pressure. The language, which was now developing into Proto-Saami, presumably adopted new words of Baltic derivation. The pressure of this wave of influence was so strong that the ancient northern cultural boundary broke down. Together with the movement of societies from the northern parts of the eastern cultural area in eastern Fennoscandia, a new form of culture spread into northern Scandinavia. It is characterized in the archaeological evidence by Lovozero Ware (also called L Ware), a wide-based quartzite arrowhead and copper/bronze technology. This cultural manifestation, which differed from previous types, spread rapidly through Scandinavia as far as northern Jämtland in the south. This process can arguably be regarded as the spread of the Proto-Saami element into northern Scandinavia, where the new Finno-Ugric language became established, being adopted by the indigenous population to replace its Ancient European language. Archaeological evidence does not seem to offer any alternatives to the theory of language replacement.
The stages of Saamification (1900 B.C. - historically recorded times). The beginning of the eastern BronzeAge and the Proto-Saami stage are contemporaneous. Accordingly, the expansion into northern Scandinavia created a new Proto-Saami cultural and language area there alongside the original cultural and language area of eastern Fennoscandia, which had earlier developed into the Proto-Saami stage. The indigenous population of the area, however, appears to have maintained its own form of cultural expression, albeit with renewed articulations such as the production of Imitated Textile ceramics. The final unification and Proto-Saamification presumably took place in the 7th century B.C., when the cultural form of expression represented by Kjelmöy Ware spread throughout northern Scandinavia and also apparently extended its influence southwards into eastern Fennoscandia. With regard to Scandinavia, however, the southern boundary of the Saami element as thus defined passed through Jämtland (approx. 63°N) for a long time. Between this boundary and the above-mentioned ancient boundary of agriculture there remained an area in which the communities preserved their traditional cultural expression for a long period and presumably their Ancient European language as well. This is a fact that has received little attention from scholars. At present, part of this area is defined as South Saami.
Subsequently, the new Proto-Saami element of northern Scandinavia and the old Proto-Saami component of eastern Fennoscandia each followed a separate development. Thecourse of development that began from the old Proto-Saami element can be followed in the light of the archaeological evidence up to the third century AD, after which the situation becomes obscured. It can be deduced from historical sources that its development was ultimately terminated by Finnish influence at the beginning of the Modern Age. What remained was the new Proto-Saami element, the development of which can be followed up to the present day in the light of archaeological and historical source material.
The original old Proto-Saami language died out, and its speakers underwent demographic assimilation. The Saami element is now carried on by another population who adopted their language from old Proto-Saami in the Bronze Age. This duality is highly significant for scholars who study the origins of the non-material capital of the Saami (religion, folklore and heritage). There are no elements of Siberian origin; instead there are elements of a definitely ancient west European and probably also partly east European derivation. Again, this duality is significant for researchers of the physical characteristics of the Saami. For example, in discussions about the contribution of the Saami to the genotypes of the Finns, it should be borne in mind that the ancestors of the original Proto-Saami and Proto-Finns of eastern Fennoscandia belonged to the ? original population of the region, and that the Proto-Saami later indirectly received genetic influences from the same pool as the Proto-Finns.It is therefore improbable that the genetic make-up of the Finns hasadistinct Saami element . The situation in Finnish Lapland is different from that in northern Scandinavia.fferent from that in northern Scandinavia. +
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