The Genetic origin of the Saami people of Scandinavia

[Noaide]

I feel very puzzled about the genetic origin of the saami. It is cleary an European people but the male and female origin seems different.

The female frequencies is as follows:

V = 41.6%
U5b1b1 = 47.6%
H1 = 2.5%
D5 = 3.1%
Z = 1.3%

The male frequence is :

N3 = 37% - 55%
I = 33%
R1a = 11%
R1b = 4%

The maternal line clearly indicate a western origin while the maternal lines shows both an clearly eastern and a weaker western origin.

Any ideas?

I have read the thesis to Tamberts and Rootsi about mtDNA and Y-chromo for the saami respictivly. And they suggest a immigration from the Iberia refugia to Scandinavia during and after the ice age trough eastern Europa and also an coastal immigration directly from northern europe to the scandinavian southern coast.

There is indication that the Berbers of Northern Africa and the Saami shared a maternal line around 10 000 years old.

[Noaide]

I got my result and it place me in the hg N. The Y DNA predictor put me very clearly (100) in the subcategory ng N3. Not a suprise given my Saami anchestry.

I have now ordered the mtDNA test. My maternal line goes straight to my great grandmother and she only knew Saami language. I expect a hit on either V or U who have high frequencies among the Saami.

Does it exist any mtDNA predictor than can increase the resolution of the result?

[josh w.]

Unlike Ydna STRs, mtdna measures provide more direct or certain information. There would be no need to make predictions about Y haplogroups from STRs if we already had direct SNP information. Mtdna tests do not need predictors because the direct test is already provided.

Your post seems to fit in with my impression of articles on Saami haplogroups. Be aware that there is some variation between Saami of different countries. (She has not been tested, but I have a hunch that my daughter has some Saami background on her maternal Norwegian side).

If you are looking for ancient origins, the low resolution HVR1 test is probably sufficient. HVR2 mtdna tests are more useful for more recent family history (if you consider 600 t0 700 years ago as recent), although they do provide information on haplogroup membership.

[Noaide]

Yes, I am aware of the variations in between the populations. As I understand this the Saami variations in their samples is smaller compared to variations in Europe samples. High variations in a population compared to low variance in another one should indicate that the origin is in the high variation population, even when f.ex the V frequencies is very high among the Saami compared to the other populations f.ex in France/Spain/Basqueland where the V is assumed to originate but today have low frequencies compared to the Saami due to founder effect/genetic drift.

[Noaide]

josh w.

How do I put myself in eventuall V og U subgroup? Do I simply find markers for the possible subgroup I expect to be in (in a mtDNA database) and compare my result to this or do I need to get a higher resolution test? I am expecting to be placed in subgroup U5b1b1c (highly frqeuent amoung the Saami) if I get an U on the mtDNA test.

[josh w.]

Saami mtdna

Noaide,your mtdna results should give your maternal line haplogroup. I am not sure how detailed they would be at the subclade level. Ftdna does offer a very expensive mtdna test which should give a great deal of information.There is another outfit "Ethno-ancestors" that does subclade analysis, but I think they focus on Ydna. Good luck--it should be worth the wait. Be prepared, your results may be unexpected.

[josh w.]

P.S. The mtdna results also list your mutation differences from the CRS as well as any matches. I am not sure but an HVR2 analysis, while not providing any further subclade membership, may still provide mutation information useful in identifying subclades.

[Noaide]

Josh,

I notice on the "Haplogroup" page in FTDNA that I had many matches on the N marker, but further on the list starting at the 3 step mutations, I begin to get matches on R1b. Is this due to the fact that N and R come from the same source in sentral asia (=K) and therefore are related haplogroups?

[josh w.]

Noaide, that is a likely explanation. With STRs another possibility is convergent evolution.

[Noaide]

I want to add for viewers of scandinavian anchestory that have hits on the N or N3 marker that this should not be a suprise to them. There is a lot of incorrect history about Norway that have its roots in the Norwegian identity building over the centuries, where the saami didnt fit in. One of them is that the saami population is a recent addition and forreign element to the population and that they have some way "invaded" southern part of Norway. I have made some investigation of available research made in different disicplines around the issue of the south saami history in southern Norway. I do have links to this issues but unfortunatly they are all in Norwegian language.

My summary of the finding is as follows:

1. Court documents of disputes between south saami raindeer hurders and hunters in the Røros, Østerdalen area of southern Norway some distance north/inward from Oslo from 1500-1800 century confirming presence of southsaamis in the area. These documents also indirectly confirm the transition from local hunter and gatheres society to reindeer hurding society.
2. Official reports about chasing/cleansing by Norwegian peasents of southsaami raindeer hurders and saami villages in the above mentioned areas and timespan. This was also in the time known as the "little ice age" making farming and agriculture more difficult and the fight for the natural game more intense.
3. Findings of saami artifacts and hunting traps for wild animals in the area. These findings suggest that the saami was dominating the Østerdalen area at least until 750 a.c. The archelogists cannot find traces of "germanic" farming tribes in the area before after 600-800 a.c.
4. There also exists older referances to the saami populations among them from Roman historians. These I have in English.

So if you got the N and you can trace your anchestors to scandinavia dont imidiatly assume you come from Finland!

Based on what I know about the saami Y-DNA cocktail and the presence of N among the population that define themself as Norwegian 13% have Saami anchestors. I can calculate this on the basis of the presence of N3 of 6.9% that is higly probable an saami marker in a norwegian population. In my calcuation I assume norwegians have swamped the saami population in southern Norway.

[Noaide]

Historical references to saami (or finns)

Historical references to Saami (or finner):

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/dieda/hist/early.htm

Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 55-ca. 117 C.E.) Roman historian:

"The Fenni live in astonishing barbarism and disgusting misery: no arms, no horses, no household; wild plants for their food, skins for their clothing, the ground for their beds; arrows are all their hopes; for want of iron they tip them with sharp bone. This same hunting is the support of the women as well as of the men, for they accompany the men freely and claim a share of the spoil; nor have their infants any shelter against wild beasts and rain, except the covering afforded by a few intertwined branches. To these the young men return: these are the asylum of age; and yet they think it happier so than to groan over field labour, be cumbered with building houses, and be for ever involving their own and their neighbours’ fortunes in alternate hopes and fears. Unconcerned towards men, unconcerned towards Heaven, they have achieved a consummation very difficult: they have nothing even to ask for. "

Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea (490?-562? C.E.)

"But among the barbarians who are settled in Thule, one nation only, who are called the Scrithiphini, live a kind of life akin to that of the beasts. For they neither wear garments of cloth nor do they walk with shoes on their feet, nor do they drink wine nor derive anything edible from the earth. For they neither till the land themselves, nor do their women work it for them, but the women regularly join the men in hunting, which is their only pursuit. For the forests, which are exceedingly large, produce for them a great abundance of wild beasts and other animals, as do also the mountains which rise there. And they feed exclusively upon the flesh of the wild beasts slain by them, and clothe themselves in their skins, and since they have neither flax nor any implement with which to sew, they fasten these skins together by the sinews of the animals, and in this way manage to cover the whole body. And indeed not even their infants are nursed in the Lapps way as among the rest of mankind. For the children of the Scrithiphini do not feed upon the milk of women nor do they touch their mother’s breast, but they are nourished upon the marrow of the animals killed in the hunt, and upon this alone. Now as soon as a woman gives birth to a child, she throws it into a skin and straightway hangs it to a tree, and after putting marrow into its mouth she immediately sets out with her husband for the customary hunt. For they do everything in common and likewise engage in this pursuit together. So much for the daily life of these barbarians."

Paul the Deacon (ca. 725-799?)

"The Scritobini, for thus that nation is called, are neighbors to this place. They are not without snow even in the summer time, and since they do not differ in nature from wild beasts themselves, they feed only upon the raw flesh of wild animals from whose shaggy skins also they fit garments for themselves. They deduce the etymology of their name according to their barbarous language from jumping. For by making use of leaps and bounds they pursue wild beasts very skillfully with a piece of wood bent in the likeness of a bow. Among them there is an animal not very unlike a stag, from whose hide, while it was rough with hairs, I saw a coat fitted in the manner of a tunic down to the knees, such as the aforesaid Scritobini use, as has been related. In these places about the summer solstice, a very bright light is seen for some days, even in the night time, and the days are much longer there than elsewhere, just as, on the other hand, about the winter solstice, although the light of day is present, yet the sun is not seen there and the days are shorter than anywhere else and the nights too are longer, and this is because the further we turn from the sun the nearer the sun itself appears to the earth and the longer the shadows grow."

[Noaide]

Based on what I know about the saami Y-DNA cocktail and the presence of N among the population that define themself as Norwegian 13% have Saami anchestors. I can calculate this on the basis of the presence of N3 of 6.9% that is higly probable an saami marker in a norwegian population. In my calcuation I assume norwegians have swamped the saami population in southern Norway.

The exact percentage of people who believe to be Norwegian, but of Saami anchestry is around 14%. For the female line the percentage is around 6% indicating a hypothesis that a marriage between a saami man and a norse women, the children will at a higher rate be in the norse group, while a marriage between a norse man and saami women the offspring will in a higher rate be put in the saami group. Anyway the saami women seem to leave less traces in the norwegian population than the saami men.

[Svein Davidsen]

Norwegian References

Noaide.
Very interesting. As you may remember I'm Norwegian and Haplogroup N (LLY22G), with no known Saami connections after ca1600.
I would be very interested in the Norwegian language references you have, either posted here or directly by email to svein punkt davidsen krøllalfa wandoo punkt fr.
By the way my mtDNA came out as J*, but that is another story.

[dentate]

Careful about the mtDNA. Josh W. is not entirely correct. Although FTDNA is doing SNP testing, the original haplogroup classifications for mtDNA were based on RFLP testing, and the two do not always correlate perfectly. FTDNA, in reporting the results, will sometimes simply list the larger supergroup and not the more refined subclade, especially for the less common mtDNA types where the correlation between mutations and RFLP-defined clade is less well documented.

[Noaide]

Noaide.
Very interesting. As you may remember I'm Norwegian and Haplogroup N (LLY22G), with no known Saami connections after ca1600.
I would be very interested in the Norwegian language references you have, either posted here or directly by email to svein punkt davidsen krøllalfa wandoo punkt fr.
By the way my mtDNA came out as J*, but that is another story.

News article Adresseavisen: http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/politi...icle592738.ece

Article goverment sami right comitee: http://www.dep.no/filarkiv/181422/Fo...eskrivelse.doc

Article reindeer hurding disputes p.21: http://www.rangifer.no/norge/rr10_full.pdf