I’m very passionate about the Sami and very interested in their culture. There’s no doubt they are a historically oppressed people and indigenous to Sapmi.
But let’s be rigorous here. They weren’t in Europe before everyone else like the First Nations in Canada. The Sami arrived in Europe, from the Urals in the 2nd millenium BC. By this time the Indo-Europeans and their languages were already spreading through Europe. The Neolithic farmers who mixed with the Indo-Europeans were there since the 7th millenium BC. The hunter gatherers they mixed with…were there since before the last ice age.
You could make the case that the Basques are our first nations. That would be true of their language and culture. But the fact is, genetically, they are pretty much the same as their neighbors due to millenia of intermixing and contact.
Ok I looked a bit further, the evidence for the first inhabitants of the region being ancestors of the Sami is based on linguistic studies with other Uralic languages. But it’s far from direct evidence. I always assumed it was based on archeological evidence.
I’m very passionate about the Sami and very interested in their culture. There’s no doubt they are a historically oppressed people and indigenous to Sapmi.
But let’s be rigorous here. They weren’t in Europe before everyone else like the First Nations in Canada. The Sami arrived in Europe, from the Urals in the 2nd millenium BC. By this time the Indo-Europeans and their languages were already spreading through Europe. The Neolithic farmers who mixed with the Indo-Europeans were there since the 7th millenium BC. The hunter gatherers they mixed with…were there since before the last ice age.
You could make the case that the Basques are our first nations. That would be true of their language and culture. But the fact is, genetically, they are pretty much the same as their neighbors due to millenia of intermixing and contact.
deleted by creator
There’ve been people in Sapmi for at least 10 millennia.
Maybe, but not Sami people.
Ok I looked a bit further, the evidence for the first inhabitants of the region being ancestors of the Sami is based on linguistic studies with other Uralic languages. But it’s far from direct evidence. I always assumed it was based on archeological evidence.
That’s why we don’t call ourselves “first nation”. We’re indigenous people