Migracijske i etničke teme (Dec 2001)

The Origins and Migrations of the Uralic People

  • Emil Heršak

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 17, no. 4
pp. 377 – 404

Abstract

Read online

After identifying the Uralic-speaking peoples (Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic), the author briefly describes the history of the Uralic theory. The term "Uralic" was introduced under the supposition that the homeland of these peoples was located near the Urals. However, reconstruction of a ProtoUralic language poses problems: records of the Uratic languages date only to the 11 – 12th centuries CE and affinities among them are mostly lexical and structural (aglutinisation, lack of gender, vowel harmony). Yet the latter are not specific only to Uralic and lexemes may be borrowed. Thus, some linguists hold that there never existed a parent Proto-Uralic (or even Proto-Finno-Ugric) language, but that these languages arose via later linguistic contacts. Still, most researchers do feel that the Uralic languages stem from a common parent language, spoken by a prehistoric community. Some archaeologists and linguistics, who see Uralic as very ancient, place the Proto-Uralians in the late Palaeolithic, in areas of Central and East Europe, with a northward expansion during the glacial retreat. More often the context is seen as Mesolithic or Neolithic. The problem of the homeland has led to two approaches. One may be termed "autochthonous". It assumes that the ancestors of the Finns (at least) evolved near the Baltic or in areas where the Finnic peoples would appear in recorded history. The second approach is "migrational". It implies dispersion from the East and from beyond the Urals. Evidence of certain Mongoloid traits on the remains of Neolithic people in North Europe, supported also by DNA studies in Finland, would indicate that migration from the East did occur. The large Neolithic (Aeneolithic) cultural group associated with pit-comb and comb ware that extended from the Baltic to beyond the Urals may have been the context for early Uralic dispersion. One analysis locates its origin in West Siberia, with prior ties to the Aral Sea area (the Kelteminar culture) or to Mesolithic cultures in the Caspian region. Yet the Uralians were in contact also with other cultures and languages: in the South with the Pit-grave culture (probably Indo-European, later Indo-Tranian or Iranian), and in the North-West with the Battle-Axe populations (also Indo-European, but Balto-Slavic and/or Germanic). In the migrational model Proto-Samoyedic split from Finno-Ugric by 4000 BCE. The division of Finnic and Ugric occurred in the 2th millennium BCE. The Finnic group developed from the part of the former Finno-Ugric community that had shifted west of the Urals and later extended along the tributaries of the Volga to the Baltic and North-East Europe, while the Ugric peoples expanded east of the Urals, partially under the influence of the (Indo-Iranian or Iranian) Andronovo culture. As to the ancestors of the Samoyeds, although it is thought that they first moved from the Urals into Siberia, one theory links them with the East-European pit-comb cultures and with the ancestors of the Saami, who would have been later linguistically assimilated by Finnic groups, once the Samoyedic core had back-tracked into Siberia. Some of the Samoyeds later returned to North Europe. The question remains as to the identity of the first inhabitants of Arctic Europe and contingent Siberia, whom Samoyed legends call Sjiirtja (in Europe) and Morrede (in Siberia). It has been suggested that in Siberia this population may have been a West Yukagir group (the Yukagir language is also often associated with Uralic), while the first inhabitants of Arctic Europe would be an unknown Uralic group, or part of the theoretic Saami-Samoyedic continuum. Finally, the author briefly notes the old (old-new) theories on ancient ties between the Uralic and Altaic languages.

Keywords