I recently wrote about how Wiik’s model was wrong in supporting a Mesolithic European Vasconic-Uralic harmony – genetically based on the modern distribution of R1b vs. N1c haplogroups -, and thus also the disruption of this harmony by Indo-Europeans (supposedly a population of R1a-lineages invading central Europe from a Balkan homeland).
Romanticism does this quite frequently: it makes us believe in some esoteric fantasy, like the ethnic continuity of our ancestors in the region we live (and a far, far greater original territory that has been unfairly diminished by invaders), providing us with strong links to support our artificial borders and their potential expansion.
Even though my article on the demic diffusion of Indo-European languages does only slightly comment on the origins (and potential language) of N1c-lineages and of Proto-Basque and Proto-Uralic languages, I have already received some angry emails by Basque and Finnish genetic amateurs. I don’t get the point of fantasizing about one’s own ethnicity and prehistoric territory, and then getting through the five stages of grief when one is confronted with different (usually sounder) theories, time and time again. It seems like a lot of time lost by generations in wholly stupid quests and self-negotiation.
However wrong Wiik’s basic theses are, though, if you have read my paper you have seen that Corded Ware groups spread from north-western Ukraine might have spoken Uralic languages. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Pre-Germanic, Pre-Balto-Slavic and Pre-Indo-Iranian might have been adopted by peoples who spoke Uralic languages, probably related with each other, possibly belonging to early Finno-Ugric dialects. In that sense, Wiik’s work has a renewed linguistic interest, regarding the potential substrate words he investigated.
This is not a picture that certain Basque, Finnish, Russian, or Indian romantics would have hoped (or even hope today) for, in terms of ethnic, linguistic, and territorial identification, but that is not a real problem, anyway, just another building of imaginary origins that will fall as many others before them. In the same sense, Germanic ethnogenesis has become more complicated than what some would have wanted, with at least three main paternal lineages with completely different ethnolinguistic origins developing together since ca. 2500 BC to form a more homogeneous community only during the Bronze Age. Therefore, no homogeneous exclusive ethnic ‘original’ European regional community can be fantastically invented anymore.
This seems to me a real coup de grâce to genetic-based nationalism in Europe, and it is encouraging for the European Union that Germany, as the central European country, is not only a central territory, but also a central cultural and genetic bridge between west and east Europe, in terms of history, of North-West Indo-European languages, and paternal lineages and admixture analyses.
References
- Wiik, Kalevi 2007: “Where Did European Men Come From?”. Journal of Genetic Genealogy, 4:35-85, 2008
- Wiik, Kalevi 1999: “Pohjois-Euroopan indoeurooppalaisten kielten suomalais-ugrilainen substraatti”. Pohjan poluilla. Suomalaisten juuret nykytutkimuksen mukaan. Toim. Paul Fogelberg. Bidrag till kännedom av Finlands natur och folk, 153. Helsinki 1999.
- Wiik, Kalevi 2002: Eurooppalaisten juuret. Atena, Jyväskylä 2002.
EDIT: You can read interesting recent posts on genetics of Finnic peoples in Razib Khan’s blog: The origin of the Finnic peoples, and The Finnic Peoples Emerged In Baltic After The Bronze Age, the latter discussing results on a recent paper by Saag et al. (2017).
