The cave paintings of Spain and France were also made by ancestors of Finnish people

(Published in Kotimaa magazine, translation by Google and me)

The cave paintings in southern France and northern Spain were painted during the last Ice Age. Genetic research shows that there were also Finns’ ancestors among the Painters. How is this possible?

During the last Ice Age, the Weichsel (Wistula) glaciation, when the continental glacier was at its widest, all the inhabitants of Europe were in three places: between Greece and Ukraine, Italy and the area of ​​southern France and northern Spain (Franco-Cantabria). Near the edges of the glacier was a glacial steppe thousands of kilometers wide.

Perhaps two hundred thousand people lived in all of Europe. Nobody and nothing lived under and on top of the glacier. Possible inhabitants of the Finnish area had retreated to warmer areas as the glacier expanded from the north. There is no evidence of pre-Ice Age settlement in the area of ​​present-day Finland. Even the discoveries in Susiluola have not been proven to be from before the last ice age.

At the end of the Ice Age, Europeans began to spread northward along the edge of the shrinking glacier. They were attracted there by food, especially deer and elk, whose numbers increased when the glacial steppes were reforested.

The first inhabitants probably arrived in the area of ​​present-day Finland when the Salpausselkä began to emerge from the freshwater Baltic ice lake, which the Ancylus Sea had turned into when the ice melted. There were a lot of seals, which by hunting you could get both meat for food and skins to wear.

The pictures in the caves show bisons and mammoths

Spanish and French cave paintings painted in the Solutrè, Aurignac and Madeleine cultures mainly depict prey animals important to hunters, such as bisons, wild horses and mammoths. There are only a few pictures of carnivores and they are often as if hidden in the corners of caves and inside other paintings. The best paintings are in Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain.

The paintings can have been used in religious situations, such as when praying for the gods for good catches. It is unlikely that they have been made at least solely for the sake of fine art.

Your genes also tell about previous generations

Genetic research has brought the possibility to follow the lines of one’s own ancestors and mothers even as far as the original home of homo sapiens, in Africa. At the end of the ice age, the Finnish genetic maternal lines H (41% of Finns), U5 (22%) and V (6%) were represented in Franco-Cantabria, from where they spread north with people. The maternal lines W (8%) and J (6%), which originate from Western Asia, have spread from the Greek-Ukraine region to present-day Finland. Finns also have other, less common maternal lines.

On the basis of maternal lines, it is easy to calculate that about 69% of Finns’ ancestors came from present-day France and Spain, and about 14% from the Greek-Ukrainian region. 40-60% of Europeans belong to maternal line H.

The maternal lines H, U5 and V spread to the north and to Finland right where the Spanish and French cave paintings are and the people who painted those paintings had them. That’s why those cave paintings were also painted by Finnish foremothers and foreuncles.

In humans, the gene fragments of the genetic maternal line, or haplogroups, are in the mitochondrial DNA of the cells. They are abbreviated mtDNA.

”They came and took our women and jobs” already 2000 years ago

What about the male ancestors of the Finns? About 58% of current male Finns belong to haplogroup N1C. This haplogroup probably came with wandering hunters. First, it is known to have spread from the east to the Baltics, and then from the Baltics to Finland.

Finland is a special country in that the female ancestors of Finns were clearly European, but the genetic paternal lines of the male ancestors lead to Siberia – where peoples of pre-Finnish descent have spread westward. The male newcomers from the East have reproduced with the women who already lived here.

It is possible that the newcomers raped the women and killed the men, or the newcomers from the east had better hunting skills or better gods. At least they have had a new metal, iron, from which forged spearheads have been able to catch better prey than the old bronze ones. With steel swords, the newcomers have been able to defend their families better than with the bronze swords of previous men. Iron axes and ploughshares have at least been better than the softer and therefore easier to dull bronze ones.

There is no information about whether the women have engaged in sexual intercourse with them under compulsion or voluntarily, but in either case, many representatives of father lines other than N1C must have stated: ”They came and took our women and jobs.” What some men in Finland are still afraid of has already happened around 2000 years ago. The population change that some fear today happened already in the Iron Age, and we Finns are the result of that.

The gene containing the genetic paternal line is in the DNA of the Y chromosome and is therefore not inherited at all to women who do not have a Y chromosome at all. Every woman can think the DNA of her father and brothers is her Y-DNA, too.

Eastern Finns’ genes differ a lot from Western Finns’

Eastern and western Finns are clearly different in terms of their genes. The difference is greater than between the British and North Germans, even though the distance between Eastern and Western Finland is only a few hundred kilometers. The genetic border between Eastern and Western Finland follows the border of Pähkinäsaari peace from 1323, i.e. it is actually the difference between the northeast and the southwest.

It has been possible to move freely across the border of Pähkinäsaari peace without even noticing it, so the existence of the border has hardly affected the genes. Instead, the spread of permanent agricultural settlement to Eastern Finland, from the east, along with the eastern population, had an effect on the emergence of the genetic difference. Until that time, the main occupation in Eastern Finland must have been cattle breeding, which would be associated with the name of the eastern region, Karelia (Karelia < Karjala < karja = livestock).

Farming in western Finland had already spread earlier, from the west and south, along with those belonging to the hammer ax culture. Cultures of former times always spread with people, or people with cultures. In prehistory, the term culture refers to artefact finds: grave finds and everything else found.

Haplogroup I of paternal lines is found in Western Finland, which in the whole world is found only in Europe and especially commonly in Scandinavia. In Western Finland, its prevalence is as high as in Sweden, which indicates a strong Scandinavian influence in the region.

Eastern Finns were more influenced by the eastern part of the heritage that goes to Siberia, which can still be seen in the paternal lines of Eastern Finns. In particular, the TatC marker factor, which occurs very widely among Buryats and Yakuts in East Asia, can be seen in Eastern Finnish genes, but it does not occur in Western Europe, nor in Western Finland. In addition to Finns, it is found in the Baltics, which proves a kinship with the Baltics.

Newcomers from the east therefore had more influence in Eastern Finland and newcomers from the west in Western Finland. Today, these newcomers would be called immigrants.

Finland is a country of immigrants’ descendants

Genetic research confirms that people have moved and changed their place of residence before, too. Genes do not move without their carriers, people.

Today, Finland is practically an island because of RuZZia/Putinistan, but from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages, the area of ​​present-day Finland has been reached by both water and land. There has been space here to spread out to practice their livelihoods, and the few inhabitants of the area have mixed with the newcomers. Immigrants have come here many times and from different directions. Not as one group from the river bend of the Volga, but after the ice age in many waves.

There is no one living in Finland who is not a descendant of immigrants or an immigrant himself.

Literature:

https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_N1c_Y-DNA.shtml

Huoponen, Lappalainen and Savontaus: East or West? Genetic ancestry of Finns. Duodecim 2006, duodecimlehti.fi/duo95417.

Karin Bojs: Homo europaeus. The long history of European man. Minerva Kustannus Oy 2016.

Walter Lang: Homo Fennicus. Ethnohistory of the Baltic Finns. SKS 2020.

Haggrén, Halinen, Lavento, Raninen & Wessman: Traces of our antiquity. The pre- and early history of Finland from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages. Gaudeamus 2015.

Pictures:

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/altamira-cave-paintings.htm

https://www.lascaux-dordogne.com/en/partager/nos-incontournables/lascaux

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