from K. Julku, K. Wiik: The Roots and Peoples and Languages of North

I hope George hasn't signed off for good; this might interest him:

Richard Villems, Maarja Adojaan, Toomas Kivisild, Ene Metspalu, Jüri
Parik, Gerli Pielberg, Siiri Rootsi, Kristiina Tambets and Helle-Viivi
Tolk:
Reconstruction of Maternal lineages of Finno-Ugric speaking people and
some remarks on their Paternal inheritance
'Summary
Analysis of maternal and paternal lineages of Estonians and other
North European Finno-Ugric speaking people reveal their close genetic
relatedness. This conclusion is also true for Saami, although genetic
drift perhaps does not allow to see it at the first glance. Maternal
lineages of Finno-Ugrians are predominantly a subset of these found
all over Europe. Among paternal lineages an intriguing link with some
Siberian populations was suggested recently by others. Our analysis
supports an explanation that a particular mutation under discussion
arose in proto-Finno-Ugrians long ago and only later spread eastward.
...

Conclusions

Irrespective whether we analyse maternal or paternal lineages of the
Finno-Ugric people, we end up with a finding that the northeastern
European Finno-Ugric speaking people, including Saami, are similar
indeed. While in case of maternal lineages this similarity is shared,
in surprisingly detailed way, by other European Caucasoids, the
aforementioned distinct Y-chromosomal mutation, present at a high
frequency in northeastern Finno-Ugric languages speaking males, seems
to be totally absent in the western part of Europe. Its moderate
frequency among eastern Slavic populations and high incidence in some
Siberian populations are the facts deserving detailed attention from
the point of view of demographic history of populations, speaking
Finno-Ugric, Uralic in general, as well as Altaic languages.

It is clear that the Finno-Ugrians share their maternal lineages with
other Caucasoids and not with Mongoloids, at least in any larger
extent. Can we find, inside this Pan-European homogeneity of mtDNA
haplogroups, certain Finno-Ugric variants? We think that it is
possible. Not necessarily Finno-Ugric, but certainly regional. As an
attempt, we analysed recently ~2100 Caucasians, including a large
Estonian sample, for the 9-bp deletion in the intergenic COII/ tRNALys
region. We ended up with 20 deletion mutants and seven triplications
of this 9-bp motif. One of the varieties of the deletion mutants was a
family of haplotypes at the background of the European-specific RFLP
haplogroup T with a characteristic two-basepair upstream shift in the
place of the excision of the 9-bp motif. Since this specific variety
of deletion mutation found in Estonians is shared by some of our
neighbours, not necessarily Finno-Ugric speakers only, it can serve as
a regional marker. The other deletion variety at the background of
haplogroup H was further characterised by two point mutations in the
flanking sequences. What we suggest here is that this kind of
additional mutations and specifically their varieties are unique
enough to trace detailes of maternal inheritance at the inter-European
level.

Since the similarities both in maternal and paternal lineages are
shared between Finns, Estonians and the Volga basin Finno-Ugric
speakers on one hand, and Saami on the other, we wish to question
traditional stressing of the genetic "outlierness" of the Saami
population. So far as we speak about the Y chromosome and mtDNA of the
Saami population, the differences are more easily explained by drift
than by any extensive Mongoloid influence. Our results allow also to
question the origin of the DYS7C-linked C allele of the Y chromosome
and to suggest that it has first occurred in Finno-Ugric population
and only considerably later found its way to (some) Siberian populations.

Lineage analysis, at present specifically based on the mitochondrial
and the Y chromosomal DNA polymorphisms, is extraordinarily powerful
tool for detailed analysis of the genetic history of humans. The era
has just started and only a fraction of the heuristic power of the
approach is used so far. But even this fraction can be considerably
more illuminating provided true interdisciplinary spirit of the
enquiry is achieved.

There is always a great temptation to exceed the accumulation of
experimental data and to bring up new wild hypotheses. We think that
one should be tolerant here: these hypotheses, irrespective of their
final validity, do serve as hints to where the "fieldwork" should
concentrate at a given time. And to concentrate we unfortunately must
in this world of very limited resources for scientific exploration.'

Y-chromosomes from somewhere else means invasion, and also that FU in
Europe must have a substrate, which is also a substrate for Northern
European IE. The best guess is Kuhn's ar-/ur- language which I suspect
is identical with Schrijver's language of geminates.


Torsten