On the structure and history of Y-DNA haplogroup N1c1

An N1c1 enthusiast from Finland has just released a short paper titled "Structure of the Y-haplogroup N1c1 updated to 67 markers". As the title suggests, it's an update of an earlier analysis, using more markers and also newly discovered SNPs. From memory, this guy's a linguist, not a genetecist, but he's done a very nice job, so I think the work deserves a plug. It'll probably take months before we see anything like this published formally, using the same, up to date information.

At the next stage the Northeast European group split off: the North European group spread westwards and could be tentatively connected to the spread of the Typical Combed Ware Culture from the Upper Volga area to Baltia (all the way to Southern Lithuania and Northeast Poland, where Uralic languages were never spoken) and Finland, and further influencing on the culture of eastern parts of Sweden, too) ca. 6 000 years ago. The spread of this culture was accompanied by many changes in the material culture and dwellings, which hints to the considerable movement of people.

The Scandinavian group and the Balto-Polish group could be derived from this cultural area. The true Rurikids (members of noble Russian families) belong to the Scandinavian group, and their closest relatives are found in the coastal Finland, among the Swedish-speaking Finns. Their brother group (clan of Tawast–Räihä) is found among the Western Finns. The Balto-Polish group in turn has descendants in Central Europe.

It must be noted that this wave (if it is truly connected to the Combed Ware Culture) most probably spoke neither Indo-European nor Uralic language. No earlier than one millennium later the Corded Ware Culture spread to Baltia, Southwest Finland and Southern Sweden, supposedly spreading the Northwest Indo-European dialect. Only after this wave the N1c1 men of the area (as well as those of any other haplo-group) could have begun to speak an Indo-European language. Yet it is possible that the North European group of N1c1 participated also in the Corded Ware expansion from Poland to the northern areas, even though the main bulk of Corded Ware men seem to have been R1a1.

The East European group still remained near the Upper Volga basin, and it began to expand only later. It spread to the east, behind the Urals and back to Asia, where it developed into the Turkic group. This group was again present in the Altai–Sayan area when the Turkic expansion started about 2 000 years ago. In the western parts the East European group developed into at least two groups, the Ladogan group and yet further west the Finlandian group.