Migrations from the west, south, and east shaped the Proto-Finnic ethnos

Authors

• Valter Lang University of Tartu https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0690-0606

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33339/fuf.147261

Keywords:

Proto-Finnic archaeology, Migrations, Eastern Baltic region, Bronze Age, Pre-Roman Iron Age

Abstract

This article deals with migrations to the area of what is today Estonia from the late second millennium to the late first millennium BC, as revealed by archaeological material. This was the era in which the Proto-Finnic people, language, and culture were shaped and developed. At least five immigration episodes originated from the western direction and are associated with (1) early block-shaped fields starting from the period 1400–1200 BC, (2) stone-cist graves in northern Estonia starting from 1200 BC, (3) stone cairn graves in southern Estonia from the period 1200–1000 BC, (4) ship settings, and (5) fine-grained ceramics and possibly bronze casting in fortified settlements (ca. 850–500 BC). All these groups from the west and southwest spoke some kind of Indo-European, probably Paleo- or Proto-Germanic. These migrations were accompanied by one more coming from the south, from the middle and lower reaches of the Dnieper River, ca. 1000 BC (temple ornaments of Belogrudovka-type). At least four major episodes of West Uralic-speaking immigration originated from the eastern forest zone: (1) primary pioneer settlement with SW-Tapiola group of pottery, starting from the period ca. 1200–1000 BC, (2) people of fortified settlements from the ninth century BC onward, (3) builders of early tarand cemeteries from the sixth and fifth centuries BC, and (4) users of shepherd’s crook pins and pottery with cord and comb decoration (ca. 300 BC). While Baltic loans in Proto-Finnic were acquired on the route to the west, mainly in the upper Dnieper and Daugava region, and most abundantly during the last immigration episode, closer interaction with the speakers of Germanic apparently began in coastal Estonia around the 10th–9th centuries BC and lasted until the beginning of the Pre-Roman Iron Age. Then, the construction of new stone-cist graves ceased, new migrations associated with the Germanic groups no longer took place, and the material culture was unified. All this should testify to the end of assimilation processes and the development of the early Proto-Finnic ethnos during the third quarter of the first millennium BC.

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