Valentyn Stetsyuk, Lviv; Ukraine

Introduction to the Study of Prehistoric Ethnogenic Processes in

Eastern Europe and Asia

The Anthropological Type

of Autochthon Europeans and Their Language
The anthropological type of the autochthon Europeans is difficult to establish. Here we only need
to pay attention to one peculiarity. The most people of the world have dark hair but people with light eyes
and blond or red hair is dominated in the north-western Europe 1. The light-pigmented European (Nordic)
type in Eastern Europe prevails among the population of the Baltic states, the Mordvin-Erzya, and the
Zyryan Komi2. Blonde hair is inherited as a recessive trait approximately controlled by a single gene,
although sometimes it manifests itself in heterozygotes, as the gene corresponding to the dark hair does
not always dominate3. The same applies to the blue eyes. Thus, for the inheritance of blond hair and blue
eyes, in most cases, a combination of two identical genes is necessary. When cross-breeding blonde and
blue eyed person with dark haired and dark-eyed one, their offspring will have dark hair and brown eyes
in most cases. Therefore, fair-haired and blue-eyed people could be maintained only in the region of their
primary spread. Thus, we can assume that the carriers Swiderian traditions were people of Nordic type,
which moved up to the Volga. However, V. Alekseev admits the possibility of lightening the Nordic
Europeans due to the transition of recessive genes in homozygous state. The adaptive properties of light
pigmentation in conditions of low insolation could also have significance 4. But since these processes did
not occur in the north of Canada, their probability in Europe was very small.
When the Europeans discovered the Canary Islands in the XIV century, they found them
inhabited by the high, blue-eyed, blond men with square faces, which are called the Guanches. This fact
contradicts the notion that blondes have appeared due to mutations on the shores of the North and Baltic
Seas5. The Guanches lived mainly in caves, herded cattle, a little engaged in agriculture, metals were not
known by them. They were the remnants of the ethnic group which inhabited North Africa shortly before
penetration of the Phoenicians6. Guanches face shape reminiscent of the Cro-Magnon. The language of
Guanches was akin to Berber belonging to the Afro-Asiatic family.
As J. Czekanowsky argued7, the Lviv Mathematical School established on the base of
craniological material the mathematical law of the distribution of the main four European races and their
hybrids of the first degree, which gave together the ten morphological types:

HARRISON G.A., WEINER J.S., TANNER J.M., BARNICOT N.A. (1968): Biologiya cheloveka. M. (In Russian) Human
Biology. Translation from English. M. 188.
2
MARK K.Yu. (1965) Etnogenez mordovskogo naroda po dannym antropologii: Etnogenez mordovskogo naroda. Saransk.
(In Russian) The Ethnogenesis of the Mordvinic People on Anthropologic Data: The Ethnogenesis of the Mordvinic people.
Saransk. 29, 30; MARK K., (1975-1): Antropologiya pribaltiyskikh narodov. Tallin. (In Russian) The Anthropology of the
Peoples of the Baltic Region. Tallinn. 13; MARK K.Yu. (1975-2): Somaticheskie materialy k probleme etnogeneza finnougorskikh narodov: Etnogenez i etnicheskaya istoriya narodov Severa. M. (In Russian) The Somatic Materials to the Problem
of the Ethnogenesis of the Finno-Ugric Peoples: The Ethnogenesis and the Ethnic History of the North people. M. 12.
3
HARRISON G.A., WEINER J.S., TANNER J.M., BARNICOT N.A (1968): 190.
4

ALEKSEYEV V.P. (1974-1): Geografiya chelovecheskikh ras. M. Mysl. (In Russian) The Geography of Human Races. M.
Mysl. 209-210
5
CHEBOKSAROV N.N., CHEBOKSAROVA I.A. (1985): Narody, rasy, kultury. M. Nauka. (In Russian) Folks, Races,
Cultures. M. Nauka. 126.
6
KRMER WALTER (1972): Neue Horizonte. Leipzig-Jena-Berlin. (In German) New horizons. Leipzig-Jena-Berlin. 5051.
7
CZEKANOWSKI Jan. (1957): Wstp do historii Sowian. Pozna. (In Polish) Introduction to the History of Slavs.
Poznan.

1. Nordic (long-headed, thin-faced, blond-haired).

2. Mediterranean (long-headed, low-faced, dark-haired).
3. Armenoid (short-headed, thin-faced, dark-haired).
4. Lappish (short-headed, low-faced, dark-haired).
5. North-western (a hybrid of the Nordic and Mediterranean).
6. Dinarian (a hybrid of the Nordic and Armenoid).
7. Sub-Nordic (a hybrid of the Nordic and Lappish).
8. Littoral (a hybrid of Mediterranean and Armenoid)
9. Sub-Lappish (a hybrid of Mediterranean and Lappish).
10. Alpine (a hybrid of Armenoid and Lappish).
As we can see, Nordic race is characterized by thin face, while the Guanches had the square face.
Thus, we can assume the spread of Nordic racial type from Africa in the Mesolithic at pre-condition of
the rapid tempos of graciation under the influence of environmental conditions and cultural development,
that looks pretty doubtful. Consequently, most of all, the people of Nordic local races were the really
autochthons of Western and Central Europe since the time of the Upper Paleolithic, so enough time had to
pass in order to generate some changes in anthropological traits that distinguish the Cro-Magnons and the
people of Nordic race. It should be noted that Uralic race had a large spread among the Finno-Ugric
peoples in Eastern Europe as an intermediate form between the Europeoids and Mongoloids 8.
According to anthropological studies of the Upper Paleolithic settlements near the village of
Kostenki the representatives of all main racial groups of Europe have lived in this place on the river Don
(Istoriya SSSR, 27). The analysis of numerous Epi-Paleolithic find of skulls in Bavaria gives the
following results: Nordic element - 14.4%, Lappish - 54.2%, Mediterranean - 31.4% 9. Mongoloid
features distinguish the Early Neolithic population of the Yelshansk culture which was prevalent in the
area between the Low Volga and the Urals. At least some of the skulls found in a few burials of this
culture can be attributed to Lappish type.
The Lappish race is a variant of the Ural one which could be result of cross-breeding. According
S. Oshibkina the idea of ancient cross-breeding was supported by anthropologists, which were based on
the materials of the grave field Oleniy Ostrov (Deer Island) on Lake Onega, where two types of people
were allocated the Caucasoids and Mongoloids. Later V. Yakimov came to the conclusion that the socalled "Mongoloidness" is a feature of the archaic populations of Europe 10. The spreading of Lapponoids
up to Portugal and provides a basis for other scientists to believe that the people of the Mongoloid type
were also natives in Europe11 that is fully consistent with the location of the Sino-Tibetan Urheimat in the
South Caucasus. But the well-known anthropologist Alekseev took a cautious position:
Maybe a small Mongoloid admixture in the composition of the Samies, with all its vagueness,
should be interpreted as a legacy of the ancient substratum? So it seems, and there, especially
considering the Samoyed substrate detectable in Proto-Sami (Lappish) language. However, this substrate
does not lead us away from the Ural and does not lay bridge from the Sami to the population of the
Eastern Subarctic ... If only a group of facts remains like contradicted to the conclusions of
anthropological observations. This is a Samoyed-Yukaghir language links12
8

MARK K. Yu. (1975-2): Somaticheskie materialy k probleme etnogeneza finno-ugorskikh narodov: Etnogenez i etnicheskaya
istoriya narodov Severa. M. (In Russian) The Somatic Materials to the Problem of the Ethnogenesis of the Finno-Ugric
Peoples: The Ethnogenesis and the Ethnic History of the North people. M. 13.
9
CZEKANOWSKI Jan. (1957): Wstp do historii Sowian. Pozna. (In Polish) Introduction to the History of Slavs.
Poznan. 30
10
OSHIBKINA S.V. (1990): Drevneyshie etnokulturnye obrazovaniya na severe vostochnoy Evropy: Uralo-Indogermanistika.
Balto-slavianskie yazyki i problema uralo-indoevropeyskikh sviazey. Materialy 3-ey balto-slavianskoy konferentsii 18-22 iyunya
1990 g. Ch. 2. M. (In Russian) The Oldest Ethno-Cultural Formations on the North of East Europe: Uralo-Indogermanistika:
The Baltic-Slavic Languages and the Problem of the Uralic-Indo-European Connections. The Materials of the 3rd Baltic-Slavic
Conference 18-22 July 1990. M. . P 2. 119.
11
NAPOLSKIKH V.V., 1990, Palaeoevropeyskiy substrat v sostave zapadnykh finno-ugrov : Uralo-Indogermanistika. Baltoslavianskie yazyki i problema uralo-indoevropeyskikh sviazey. Materialy 3-ey balto-slavianskoy konferentsii 18-22 iyunya 1990
g. Ch. 2. M. . (In Russian) Palaeo-European Substratum in the Complement of the Finno-Ugrians: Uralo-Indogermanistika:
The Baltic-Slavic Languages and the Problem of the Uralic-Indo-European Connections. The Materials of the 3rd Baltic-Slavic
Conference 18-22 July 1990. M. P.2. 132)
12
ALEKSEYEV V.P. (1975): Antropologicheskiy kommentariy k gipoteze tsirkumpolyarnoy kultury: Etnogenez i etnicheskaya
istoriya narodov Severa. M. (In Russian) The Anthropological Commentary to the Hypothesis of Circumpolar Culture: The
Ethnogenesis and the Ethnic History of the North people. M. 262.

Thus, it is possible the option, that the Lappish race is a Proto-Mongoloid type of a man who the
first settled in Eastern Europe after the retreat of the last glacier 15 - 12 thousands years ago. Currently,
people who speak Sino-Tibetan languages, belong to the Mongoloid race, which also includes the nations
of North and South Asia, as well as American Indians. All of them have significant differences among
themselves, which allow you to separate the Mongoloid race for a few small races, but there is no doubt
that some physical type existed which gave rise to the Mongoloid one. This type, which we
conventionally name Proto-Mongoloid had to treat speakers of the Sino-Tibetan languages at the time of
their settlement of the South Caucasus.
By the peculiarities of flint products the Mesolithic cultures of the Ukraine form three culturalterritorial region - the Azov-Black Sea, Polesie-Steppe and the Dniester-Carpathian 13. It is tempting to
suggest that these almost isolated areas correspond to three waves of resettlement of Eastern Europe
according to three major European anthropological local races, or types. Otherwise, the Polesie-Steppe
region was inhabited by carriers of the Sviderian traditions of Nordic type, the Lapponoids settled in
Azov-Black Sea region and people of Mediterranean type did in the Dniester-Carpathian area (fourth
main Caucasoid type of Armenoids appeared in Eastern Europe only in the Neolithic) but facts contradict
this. Ukrainian archaeologists say that the Mesolithic in the Ukraine began earlier than in Central
Europen14. This obviously refers to the Azov-Black Sea region, for the forest-steppe region of Polesiewithin the scope of Svidersky culture media which came exactly from Central Europe. By the geometric
form of flint products, spread at the Middle Donets, in the Crimea and North Caucasus, one can assume
the settling of the Azov-Black Sea region, the lower Don basin and the North Caucasus from the South
Caucasus, where the geometrical form was predominant, but not from the east by people of Mongoloid
type. However the people of Nordic type were present in this part of Eastenr Europe too. This resulted
from anthropological research of I. Hochman. Firstly, he believes that the primary settlers of the Eastern
Ukraine (in the Rapid and North Pontic Areas) did not have altogether Mongoloid features 15 and,
secondly, he concludes that, in general, the population of Ukraine since the Mesolithic had common
ancestors with the people of Western Europe:
By the materials of the Dnieper Rapid Area, the population of the Ukraine in the Mesolithic
epoch according to its anthropological features belonged to the big European race and was within limits
of variation of features at the Mesolithic population of Western Europe attributed to the Proto-European
type or its modification 16.
Obviously the possibility of broad settling of Eastern Europe during the Palaeolithic by people of
Mediterranean local race has to be excluded, although the Ukrainian scholars have identified in the
population of the Ukraine of Mesolithic Times three types, one of which is thin-faced AncientMediterranean one17. But, according Hochmans conclusion, this type was not numerous and how could it
get to the Ukraine as there were on the Middle Danube Basin no traces of Mesolithic populations, which
would originate from the Palaeolithic hunters 18. If we consider that any traces of the Palaeolithic
gatherers in mainland Greece were not revealed, and the first culture here was the Neolithic agricultural
Sesklo brought from the outsides19, then the resettlement of the Ukraine in the Mesolithic through
Balkans should be excluded. Clearly the mentioned Mediterranean type was a casual group of huntergatherers who came to the Ukraine by some complicated way. Maybe some single wave of the people of
this physical type, which came from the west in the post-glacial period moving north of the Carpathians,
stayed by the Dniester-Carpathian region and further settled partially the southern part of the Ukraine, but
the autochthonous populations, which inhabited these areas since the Upper Palaeolithic and created a
13

Arkheologiya Ukrainskoy SSR. (1985): Tom 1. Pervobytnaya arkheologiya. K. (In Russian) Archaeology of the
Ukrainian SSR. Vol 2. (In Russian) Prehistoric Archaeology. K. 86-89.
14
Iibid: 99.
15

HOCHMAN I.I. 1966, Naselenie Ukrainy v epokhu mezolita i neolita. M. (In Russian) The Population of the Ukraine in
Mesolithic and Neolithic Epoch. M. 184.
16
Ibid: 187.
17

Arkheologiya Ukrainskoy SSR. (1985): Tom 1. Pervobytnaya arkheologiya. K. (In Russian) Archaeology of the
Ukrainian SSR. Vol 2. (In Russian) Prehistoric Archaeology. K. 107
18
CHILDE GORDON. (1952): U istokov evropeyskoy tsivilizatsii. M. (In Russian) The Dawn of European Civilisation.
Translation from English. M. 137.
19
CHILDE GORDON. (1952): U istokov evropeyskoy tsivilizatsii. M. (In Russian) The Dawn of European Civilisation.
Translation from English. M. 93: SAFRONOV V.A. (1989): Indoevropeyskie prarodiny. Gorkiy. (In Russian) The IndoEuropean Urheimats. Gorki. 45.

separate group of the Late Palaeolithic cultures, was predominant in these countries. In the end, humans
of Mediterranean type among the Mesolithic population of the Ukraine had to be in minority also because
this type is almost absent in Eastern Europe at present 20. The people of the Mediterranean type, the
carriers of the microlithic technology of the Tardenoisian tradition that spread throughout Europe up to
Russia, according to Gordon Childe, came from Africa in some time after the melting of glacier . This
assumption, in particular, is confirmed by the data of anthropology. The Mesolithic people of Maghreb
(North Africa) are very similar by the fossil skeletons to humans of the Dnieper-Donets culture 21. People
from Africa drove northward the arid climate which was established in the Sahara. Probably they were the
basis for the formation of the Iberian ethnic groups which consisted later from the properly Iberians,
Ligurians, Turdetani, Aquitanians, Lusitanians and other peoples who inhabited the southern part of
Western Europe.
In the light of the foregoing, it is reasonable to divide Palaeo-European population of Eastern
Europe roughly into two large groups of the people of Nordic and Lappish type. The people of Lappish
type with a characteristic concave nose, lower face, light eyes and dark-blond hair are totally unlike any
of the racial types present in Europe, Africa and the Near East. Similarly, it is difficult to assume their
relationship with the Cro-Magnon men, with their massive nose, and coarse facial features 22. They are
different by eye colour and hair of the Mongoloid. Unlike Lapponoids the people of Nordic type can have
genetic relatives in Africa (Guanches). Taking all this into account we need to assume that the CroMagnons of light pigmentation were natives of Europe, populated it from the west. In Eastern Europe, the
skulls of so-called "Eastern Cro-Magnon" were found in the Crimea in the caves along the Black river 23.
in the Crimean cave Shan-Koba, near to the village of Vasilevka near Dnepropetrovskr 24. The saving
Cro-Magnon features are observed at the population of the Polesie, the Gene-Geographic zone of
Ukraine25.
We may assume that a certain group of the Proto-Mongoloids, moving out of the South Caucasus,
has penetrated into East Europe and, mixing in some of its regions with the local Proto-European
population, formed over time persistent local anthropological race, which in post-glacial period spread
almost all over Europe. Significant shifts in the distribution of individual somatic symptoms occur after
about 50 generations, or about 1,250 years 26. Thus, there was in the Mesolithic period more than enough
time to form a new racial type of Lapponoids.
Oshibkina believes that there were in the north of Eastern Europe two large cultural region in the
middle Mesolithic epoch. The western Region (the Kola Peninsula, Karelia, Eastern Onega Country) has
been settled by the population who came from Northern Europe and partly from the Russian plains. The
data about resettlement of the eastern region (the basins of the Sukhona, Northern Dvina, Vychegda,
Pechora) are limited, and the anthropological data are not available. These two regions correspond,
according to Oshibkina, the two ethno-cultural formations of antiquity, within which cultures and groups
of sites were formed appropriate tribal entities with a certain territory 27. Consequently, the whole territory
of Eastern Europe of the Mesolithic time as a whole can be roughly divided into two ethnic-cultural zones
20

ALEKSEYEV V.P., 1974-1, Geografiya chelovecheskikh ras. M. Mysl. (In Russian) The Geography of Human Races. M.
Mysl. Map of distribution of races.
21
KONDUKTOROVA T.S. (1973): Antropologiya naseleniya Ukrainy mezolita, neolita i epokhi bronzy. M. (In Russian)
Anthropology of the Population of the Ukraine on Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age. M. 48.
22
Vsemirnaya istoriya v 12 tomakh. T.1. (1955). M. (In Russian) World History in 12 Volumes. M. Figure between pp. 4849; JELINEK JAN. (1985): Bolshoy illyustrirovannyy atlas pervobytnogo cheloveka. Praga. (In Russian) A Big Illustrated
Atlas of Prehistoric Man. Prague. fig. on p. 149).
23
VOZGRIN V.E. (1992): Istoricheskie sudby krymskikh tatar. M. (In Russian) Historical Fates of Crimean Tatars. M. 17;
HOCHMAN I.I. (1966): Naselenie Ukrainy v epokhu mezolita i neolita. M. (In Russian) The Population of the Ukraine in
Mesolithic and Neolithic Epoch. M.
24
PELESHCHYSHYN M., PIDKOVA I., (1995): Davnya istoriya Ukrani. Lviv. (In Ukrainian) An Old History of Ukraine.
Lviv. 9.
25
STAROVOYTOVA R.A. (1979): Etnicheskaya genogeografiya Ukrainskoy SSR. K. (In Russian) The Ethnic GeneGeography of the Ukrainian SSR. K. 115.
26
CHEBOKSAROV N.N., CHEBOKSAROVA I.A. (1985): Narody, rasy, kultury. M. Nauka. (In Russian) Folks, Races,
Cultures. M. Nauka. 153.
27
OSHIBKINA S.V. (1990): Drevneyshie etnokulturnye obrazovaniya na severe vostochnoy Evropy: Uralo-Indogermanistika.
Balto-slavianskie yazyki i problema uralo-indoevropeyskikh sviazey. Materialy 3-ey balto-slavianskoy konferentsii 18-22 iyunya
1990 g. Ch. 2. M. (In Russian) The Oldest Ethno-Cultural Formations on the North of East Europe: Uralo-Indogermanistika:
The Baltic-Slavic Languages and the Problem of the Uralic-Indo-European Connections. The Materials of the 3rd Baltic-Slavic
Conference 18-22 July 1990. M. P 2: 125.

- a small north-eastern and a south-south-western ones, the boundary between which was indistinct. Such
division would correspond to two types of ancient race of Eastern Europe (the Nordic and Lappish).
Presumably the mentioned bound stretched out from the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea to the Lower
Volga and in this case the Nordic people occupied the south-south-west of the ethno-cultural area, and the
Lapponoids the north-east one. This conclusion results an the analysis of the physical types of the people
of the Mesolithic period, which show in particular that the settling of the Eastern Baltic region was
proceeded in two directions - from the south and the east. Here there was a process of cross-breeding of
dolichocephalic Europeoid population and mesaticephalic humans with the weake profiling of face 28. On
the other hand, according I. Hochman, Ukraine's population had clearly defined set of Europeoid features
at that time.
In accordance with the two racial types in Eastern Europe, two groups of Palaeo-European
languages should exist in the early Mesolithic period. From the beginning the boundary between them
replied the limits of the extension of these types. The state of languages at that time was very primitive. In
accordance with the concepts N. Andreyev of the hypothetical Boral proto-language, it was "the language
of the insulating structure, which vocabulary consisted of biconsonantal root words ... The Boreal protolanguage had no parts of speech such, the morphology in its modern sense was absent, the only kind of
word-formation was root-combination, ie the joining of two root words into a complex whole" 29. The
perfect veracity of representations of N. Andreyev is doubt, but the fact that the language of the
population of Eastern Europe was quite primitive at that time, confirm other scientists agree:
Surviving from the ancient times units in the structure of generating roots of words represented
predicative-attributive syntagmas functionally equivalent to modern sentence. These syntagmas were
combine not by the sounds-phonemes with meaning-distinguishing feature but by sounds-ideophones with
functions of sense-expression30.
So, anyway, but languages in such state could be influenced in large measure by the more
developed languages of the population of a higher cultural level. Therefore, due the spread of cultural
influences the boundary between the Lappish and Nordic people could move in one direction or another.
It is believed that the Kola Peninsula, Karelia, Eastern Onega was first settled in the middle Mesolithic by
carriers of the Arensburgian traditions which after the change of natural conditions in the Upper
Palaeolithic were moving in an easterly direction by two waves - in Norway and along the southern Baltic
coast31. Obviously, these people were the Nordic type. The Sami, which survived until the present time
mainly on the Kola Peninsula, or came here later and assimilated the first settlers, or they did themselves
were the first settlers on the peninsula, because the resettlement of Finland from the west is not certain 32.
This question is complicated by the evidences of progress of humans having Europeoid complex to the
Middle Onega Region at the Middle Mesolithic time:
A small craniologicalIn collection was received in the grave field of the culture Veretye-Popovo
(10 burials) and Peschanitsa (2 burials). I. Hochman, researched anthropological material, found that
28

DENISOVA R.Ya. (1975): Antropologiya drevnikh baltov. Riga. Zinantene. (In Russian) Anthropology of Ancient Balts.
Riga. Zinantene. 184.
29
ANDREYEV N.D, 1986, Ranneindoevropeyskiy prayazyk. Leningrad. (In Russian) The Old-Indo-European Language.
Leningrad. 4.
30
KORNILOV G.E. (1985): Nekotorye novye aspekty podgotovki i interpretatsii iskhodnykh dannykh dlya resheniya problemy
uralo-ataistiki. Uraloaltaistika. Arkheologiya. Etnografiya. Yazyk. (Red. Ubryatov E.I.). Novosibirsk. (In Russian) Some New
Aspects of Preparation and Interpretation of Data for Solving Problems of Uralo-Altaistic. Uraloaltaistic. Archaeology.
Ethnography. Language. Edited by Ubryatov E.I. . Novosibirsk.
31
OSHIBKINA S.V. (1990): Drevneyshie etnokulturnye obrazovaniya na severe vostochnoy Evropy: Uralo-Indogermanistika.
Balto-slavianskie yazyki i problema uralo-indoevropeyskikh sviazey. Materialy 3-ey balto-slavianskoy konferentsii 18-22 iyunya
1990 g. Ch. 2. M. (In Russian) The Oldest Ethno-Cultural Formations on the North of East Europe: Uralo-Indogermanistika:
The Baltic-Slavic Languages and the Problem of the Uralic-Indo-European Connections. The Materials of the 3rd Baltic-Slavic
Conference 18-22 July 1990. M. . P 2. 125; SHUMKIN V.Ya., 1990, Zapadnye i vostochnye traditsii kultury aborigennogo
naseleniya severnoy Fennoskandinavii: Uralo-Indogermanistika. Balto-slavianskie yazyki i problema uralo-indoevropeyskikh
sviazey. Materialy 3-ey balto-slavianskoy konferentsii 18-22 iyunya 1990 g. M. Ch. 2. (In Russian) The West and East
Traditions of the Culture of the Aborigines of Fenno-Scandinavia. Uralo-Indogermanistika: The Baltic-Slavic Languages and the
Problem of the Uralic-Indo-European Connections. The Materials of the 3rd Baltic-Slavic Conference 18-22 July 1990. M. P. 2.
10.
32
MEYNANDER K.F. (1974): Problema proiskhozhdeniya finno-ugrov po dannym arkheologii: Etnogenez finno-ugorskikh
narodov po dannym antropologii. M. (In Russian) The Problem of the Origin of Finno-Ugrians on the Data of Archaeology.
The Ethnogenesis of the Finno-Ugric People on Data of Anthropology. M. 23.

they were tall people with a distinct set of Europeoid features. At the same time they have an affinity with
a series of Europeoid skulls of the grave field og Oleniy Ostrov, as well as with certain complexes of
grave fields in Latvia, Denmark, Sweden33. Thus, these migrations could lead to a mismatch of
anthropological and linguistic boundaries. But we can assume that the two ancient Palaeo-European
languages (the west language of the Nordic people and the east language of Lappish people) remained at
the opposite ends of Eastern Europe during the Mesolithic period in more or less pure form.
Valentyn Stetsyuk

33

OSHIBKINA S.V. (1990): 123.