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[Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>]

SISU! wrote:

> I don't even remember learning about the Thracians or the
> Scythians....but I do recall the Huns, the Aryans, the Mongols, etc.
>
>  
These peoples are at the edge of history, and we need to rely on other 
tools like archaeology.  Now there's a new tool in genetics.  From 
studies of the y-chromosome, geneticists have found only two 
patrilineages in Northern Europe.  One mutation is specifically 
associated with Indo-Europeans, perhaps the so-called "Satem" languages 
especially (like Slavic), and the other group (lacking the mutation) is 
more generally northern and western.  But even though the Irish 
traditionally speak an Indo-European language, 70% of men are from the 
more general non-IE patrilineage.

To learn more specifically about how Celts and Scandivanians differ from 
Finns and Hungarians, two other predominantly non-IE groups 
(genetically), it might shed light to examine the evidence from 
mitochondial DNA.  We all inherit mtDNA from our mothers.  Mutation are 
rarer in mtDNA, but as luck would have it, lots of mutations just 
happened to have occurred during the period of interest, but I don't 
remember from the map I saw whether they involve Northern Europe.

You can have both types of DNA tested, unless you have no surviving 
paternal male relatives of your father (or dad himself, better yet).  It 
makes a great gift idea.  Men of Finnish origin with typical IE yDNA are 
more likely, IMO, to have inherited it during the (more recent) periods 
of Viking domination in Finland, or from fairly modern Russians.

What fascinates me is to go back even further, as genetics allows us to 
do.  It seems that there really was an Ice People, trapped in Central 
Asia 30,000 years ago when the last Ice Age began.  All Northern 
Europeans, Turks, Siberians, and the non-Athabaskan peoples of North 
America are descended from them.  The entire population of Northern 
Europe is descended from a single man from this lineage who was born in 
the north of Russia/Lappland, west of the Urals.  I guess once these 
people became cold-adapted, crossing the Urals and living in solid ice 
was no trouble.

Incidentally, blond hair may just be a result of cultural practices.  
Since blond hair is only found west of the Urals, it's possible that the 
men were in the habit of using their own hair and beard for their head 
covering, rather than animal skins.  One clue is the fact that Asians 
have much thinner hair, and we know that Inuits do indeed cover their 
own thin hair.  The latter groups also covered much more distance than 
the former, who basically parked themselves at the base of the Urals 
until they found a way through.  When I go too long without a haircut, 
and I ask myself, "what would the temperature have to be for me to be 
able stand this thick mane?", I think: about 40 below!

In a way, Finland is perhaps one of the least mysterious places to have 
ancestors from, since we know for a fact that the Northern Europeans all 
came from the east via Lappland or Russia.  Originally all Finns lived 
as Lapps do, of course, since the traditional agricultural lifestyle of 
Finland only became possible with the end of the Ice Age.  The Finns 
have probably also lived in that land for longer than any people on 
earth outside Africa or the Middle East, maybe 20,000 years, but since 
these other areas have seen so many different peoples come and go, their 
original inhabitants are unknown by name.

Bill