- published: 29 Jul 2013
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The Baltic Finns consist of the peoples inhabiting the region around the Baltic Sea in Northeastern Europe who speak Finnic languages, including the Finns proper, Karelians (including Ludes and Olonets), Veps, Izhorians, Votes, Livonians and Estonians (including Võros and Setos).
According to the Migration Theory that was based primarily on comparative linguistics, the proto-Finnic peoples migrated from an ancient homeland somewhere in northwestern Siberia or western Russia to the shores of the Baltic Sea around 1000 BC, at which time Finns and Estonians separated. The Migration Theory has been called into question since 1980, based on genealogy, craniometry and archaeology. Recently, a modified form of the Migration Theory has gained new support among the younger generation of linguists, who consider that archaeology, genes or craniometric data cannot supply evidence of prehistoric languages.
During the last 30 years, scientific research in physical anthropology, craniometric analyses, and the mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA frequencies have reduced the likelihood of the Migration Theory - a major westward migration as recently as 3,000 years ago. The Settlement Continuity Theory asserts that at least the genetic ancestors of the Finno-Ugric peoples were among the earliest indigenous peoples of Europe.
The genetic history of Europe is complicated because European populations have a complicated demographic history, including many successive periods of population growth. The history must be inferred from the patterns of genetic diversity across continents and time. The primary data come from sequences of mitochondrial, Y-chromosome, and autosomal DNA (including single-nucleotide polymorphisms) from modern populations and if available from ancient DNA.
One of the first scholars to perform genetic studies was Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. He used classical genetic markers to analyse DNA by proxy. This method studies differences in the frequencies of particular allelic traits, namely polymorphisms from proteins found within human blood (such as the ABO blood groups, Rhesus blood antigens, HLA loci, immunoglobulins, G6PD isoenzymes, among others). Subsequently his team calculated genetic distance between populations, based on the principle that two populations that share similar frequencies of a trait are more closely related than populations that have more divergent frequencies of the trait.