New insights into the prehistory of two major North Eurasian language families
Where do the Uralic languages such as Finnish and Hungarian or Yeniseian come from? Ancient DNA could provide answers: Researchers* with the participation of Ron Pinhasi from the University of Vienna analyzed the genome of 180 individuals from the Volga-Ural region to the Lena Valley in central Siberia in the period from the Mesolithic (approx. 11,000 years ago) to the Bronze Age (approx. 4,000 years ago). The results show that two populations can be linked to the early spread of Uralic languages such as Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian on the one hand, and to the spread of Yenisei on the other. The latter is now only spoken by the Ket people, but was once spoken in a larger area in Siberia. The results The new research results show how 10,000 to 6,000 years ago, Late Stone Age hunter-gatherer societies living across the forest belt of northern Eurasia were influenced by mixing with migratory populations. Two of the archaeological groups studied left long-term linguistic and demographic traces that were crucial for the spread of Uralic languages. The international team consists of specialists from the fields of genetics and archaeology, and builds on more than a decade of joint work and data collection in northern Eurasia.
Through their aDNA analysis, the researchers were able to identify the so-called Yakutia population of the Late Neolithic-Bronze Age (4,500-3,200 years ago) as one of the key factors that contributed significantly to the genetics of almost all present-day Uralic-speaking peoples. This group first came to Western Siberia and then to Eastern Europe. This migratory movement is also linked to the Seima-Turbino phenomenon, a rapid cultural and technological transcontinental expansion characterized by the spread of bronze metallurgy. The new results suggest that this migration also marks the earliest western expansion of the Uralic language.
The Cis-Baikal group of the Late Neolithic (5,100-3,700 years ago) also played an important role: the study identified a population of Late Bronze Age individuals from the Baikal region and the region around the Upper Yenisei, a Siberian river, as the most likely genetic root of the Yenisei language history.
"By generating and analyzing a large number of genomes of individuals from the relevant archaeological sites, we have now gained new insights into the past connections between people, their material culture and their languages," says Ron Pinhasi, co-first author from the University of Vienna.
"A language cannot be read directly from genomes, but when genetic ancestry, archaeological context and linguistic geography come together, sound conclusions can be drawn," says Leonid Vyazov, co-first author from the University of Ostrava. "Our results underline the importance of multidisciplinary research and international cooperation for the reconstruction of complex prehistoric developments."
The study also documents contact zones where Uralic speakers interacted with Indo-Iranian steppe groups, providing a plausible context for known linguistic borrowings.
Original publication:
Pinhasi, R., Reich, D., Vyazov, L. et al: ’Ancient DNA reveals the prehistory of the Uralic and Yeniseian peoples’. In: Nature, 2025.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09189-3
Illustration:
Warrior burial with bone armor plates at the Kyordyughen site (Ymyakhtakh culture, central Siberia, ca. 2000 BCE). A similar plate armor made from mammoth tusks was documented at the Seima-Turbino site of Rostovka near Omsk, which illustrates the western transfer of Central European cultural traditions in connection with the Seima-Turbino phenomenon. C: Aleksandr Stepanov
