Genetic Future has the temerity to put the shyest people in Europe on the spot, pointing to a paper, Genome-wide association analysis of metabolic traits in a birth cohort from a founder population. Below the fold is a map swiped from Genetic Future, I invite some bold if introverted readers to offer comment on the correspondences with their own knowledge of their nation.
Related: Finns as European outliers and The genetics of Fenno-Scandinavia.
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Dienekes points to another paper on European population substructure, Genome-Wide Analysis of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Uncovers Population Structure in Northern Europe:
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Here's a figure from a brand new paper on the genetics of metabolic traits in a large Finnish cohort (which I'll be posting about in more detail shortly):
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Dienekes & John Hawks have already blogged a new paper, Geographical structure and differential natural selection amongst North European populations:
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Minä ei ole suomalainen, mutta...
That's enough of that language. It looks reasonable to me, and I suspect in some parts (e.g. Kainuu) you could get a finer scale resolution.
It would be interesting to see what happens when you go further south - do the Swedish speakers stand out genetically? And are they really more closely related to ducks?
re: swedes, The genetics of Fenno-Scandinavia.
Have thy pinpointed the gene that makes the Finns enjoy that awful country polka style music that you'll be made to suffer from if you unwittingly visit Finland on a baltic ferry?
Have thy pinpointed the gene that makes the Finns enjoy that awful country polka style music that you'll be made to suffer from if you unwittingly visit Finland on a baltic ferry?
It's humppa, you ignorant person!
...I'm not sure if it's a single gene, or German introgression tempered by Finnish self-awareness of irony.
This seems to be a good opportunity to ask what these charts tell us about migration patterns.
Is the "squashed" look of the chart WRT the map because population is concentrated in the south?
Is East Lapland to the left of Kainuu, instead of above it, because migration patterns to East Lapland were primary from the west? Or maybe there was migration to Kainuu from the east?
Is the relative homogeneity of West Lapland due to increased migration up and down the coast? Or would increased internal migration result in less homogeneity?
In general, how do we account for the differences between the chart and the map?
The differences can be explained by simple logistics: the migration followed river valleys, because people travelled by boat during summer. Most of the rivers flow from north to south (Lapland) or east to west (Kainuu). The distances were measured in day trips, not kilometers on map.
Kainuu is also connected to south with water courses that roughly follow the current eastern border.
the migration followed river valleys, because people travelled by boat during summer.
they're too shy to be away from water.
No, Kainuu was colonized from Savo. The colonists came from different populations within southern/central Finland and the horizontal axis seems mostly to reflect this. There's more info in the supplementary material of the article.
Actually, it looks to me like the Kainuu distribution can be explained by migration down from Lapland.
Actually, it looks to me like the Kainuu distribution can be explained by migration down from Lapland.
Umm, why? If you are only referring to the vertical "spread", then yes, but why not migration north from Kainuu just as well? Or some other factor affecting both Lapland and Kainuu (Saami admixture?)