How did Y-DNA haplogroup Q enter Scandinavia?

The mystery is how the Eskimos crossed the rough Atlantic? They had only kayaks.
Physically you can cross it on kayak if lucky, but there is not much room to bring food on little kayak, and they would need to do it in a group, at least male and female.

They had umiaks also:

A large umiak can hold more than 20 people in its 6 metres (20 ft) to 10 m (33 ft) frame; and about seven skins are needed for the cover on a boat of 30 ft (9.1 m). It has traditionally been used in summer to move people and possessions to seasonal hunting grounds and for hunting whales and walrus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umiak

I'm not a sailor but reaching Norway from Greenland looks easier then reaching Hawaii from Polynesia:

The early settlement history of Hawaiʻi is still not completely resolved. Some believe that the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaiʻi in the 3rd century from the Marquesas and were followed by Tahitian settlers in AD 1300 who conquered the original inhabitants. Others believe that there was only a single, extended period of settlement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Hawaii#Voyage_to_the_Hawaiian_islands

Then we should not forget that Gulf Stream makes climate on the route from Greenland to Scandinavia much milder then in North Canada for example.

There is also a study from Helgason in 2000 which finds 7% of Q haplogroup in Iceland which could mean that Iceland was used as a temporary settlement for this people, but direct arrival to Scandinavia is also possible.

When discussing possibility of their arrival from opposite direction during migration period, as much as I know predominate Q1 subclade in Hungary (territory where Huns and Avars established their rule) is Q1a2, and in Scandinavia it is Q1a3. Also history did not record any such movement.
 
It's news to me. I didn't know they had big boats like umiak. It makes it more realistic now that they could have swam to Scandinavia, island jumping in the process.
Thanks
 
Umiaks are just big kayaks. They are not designed to cross oceans. Even if Polynesians could hop from island to island with such boats, it is far more perilous to cross the cold and windy Norwegian Sea. What's more, if they had travelled from Greenland to Norway in large numbers, why wouldn't they have settled in Iceland, the Faroes or the Shetlands in between, as the Vikings did ? These islands were all uninhabited when the Vikings discovered them. If Eskimos were equipped to survive in Greenland there is no way these islands were too inhospitable for them.
 
I agree with you; it is million times easier and logical that Q had came from Central Asia. It is almost absurd to think eskimos settled in Norway coming by boat from Greenland. Moreover, lets note that their boats never would support this kind of travel by the North Sea.

I really don't think it's the Eskimos. It's far easier to come from Siberia to Scandinavia than from Greenland. Then even if a few Eskimos had managed the improbable feat of crossing a glacial sea in kayak, they wouldn't have been enough to procreate in large numbers enough to influence Y-DNA statistics.

The Vikings did reach Greenland and Canada with much more advanced ships (the Drakars) in the Middle Ages, but their settlements there were quickly abandoned and they didn't leave any descendants behind (Greenland was re-colonised by the Danes in the 18th century, which is why there are now people of Scandinavian descent there).

The two most liekely possibilities in my view are :

1) Q came to Scandinavia from Siberia during the late Paleolithic, towards the end of the Ice Age.

2) Q came from Siberia/Central Asia as part of the Hunnic confederation around the 4th-5th century.
 
Umiaks are just big kayaks. They are not designed to cross oceans. Even if Polynesians could hop from island to island with such boats, it is far more perilous to cross the cold and windy Norwegian Sea. What's more, if they had travelled from Greenland to Norway in large numbers, why wouldn't they have settled in Iceland, the Faroes or the Shetlands in between, as the Vikings did ? These islands were all uninhabited when the Vikings discovered them. If Eskimos were equipped to survive in Greenland there is no way these islands were too inhospitable for them.

I have two questions:

- How do we know Iceland or Shetlands were uninhabited?

- How did Inuit people get to Greenland 4500 years ago?

My answer for this second question is - they most likely crossed 500 kilometers from Canada with their umiaks. And distance from Greenland to Iceland is very similar. If we analyse their way of life which obviously included a lot of fishing and spending a lot of time on the open sea, it would be very strange if since 2500 BC they never got to Iceland at least. The picture bellow can give us some ideas what could've been going on with Inuit people:

arctico.jpg
 
I agree with you; it is million times easier and logical that Q had came from Central Asia. It is almost absurd to think eskimos settled in Norway coming by boat from Greenland. Moreover, lets note that their boats never would support this kind of travel by the North Sea.
The only problem with this is that there is a Q desert in Northern European Russia and Finland. Very rarely it happens that haplogroup disappears completely if it was ever there.
 
I have to agree, if they managed to come to Greenland, they should be able to jump to Iceland, smaller islands to Norway.
How can they survive in Kalaallite up there, geez. :)
 
The only problem with this is that there is a Q desert in Northern European Russia and Finland. Very rarely it happens that haplogroup disappears completely if it was ever there.

Yeah, your opinion also makes sense, sure.
Anyway the opposite is also true: why didn't they settled in the Feroe, Shetlands or even Iceland, which is much closer to Greeland?
Really don't imagine the answer.
 
I have two questions:

- How do we know Iceland or Shetlands were uninhabited?

No archaeological trace of human presence. Vikings said so too.

- How did Inuit people get to Greenland 4500 years ago?

Don't be fooled by the map. The islands of northern Canada are interconnected with each other by thick sheets of ice in winter. Greenland was also connected by an ice bridge until a few millennia after the end of the last Ice Age. Nobody knows for sure when the Inuits first got to Greenland, but the best guess is when it was still connected to Canada. After all, South America was already settled by humans at least 15,000 years ago. Why would Greenland be last when it is so near from the entry point to North America ?
 
The islands of northern Canada are interconnected with each other by thick sheets of ice in winter.

Well, this is a good point. It was not known to me.

I have to say I ran out of arguments but some of the previous ones still look good. :)

I guess I will wait for some future DNA tests to be convinced what were the ways of Q in Scandinavia.
 
From wikipedia:
It's absent in the Finnish and Sámi populations.
it was probably carried by R1a population that settled Scandinavia long time ago, from the peak next to the Caspian sea...

as for the rest of Europe, I would consider Avars as its source, in addition to, and more than, Huns... I do not think Huns did actually leave much of the offspring in Europe...
 
I have haplogroup Q (Y-DNA). I live in the Skåneland (aka Scania).
 
I'm norwegian with haplogroup Q on y-dna and mtdna haplogroup H. I have no known blood outside Norway on my fathers side.

Snorre Sturlasons saga of the vikings tells how norse god Odin was an asian warlord/shaman migrating to Scandinavia (more precisely Sweden) -- and with his fellows established the first king dynasties of Scandinavia. Snorres writings on Odin being a historical figure has largely been discredited by historians, but the book The Search for Odin by Thor Heyerdahl (which by the way was his last project before he died) goes in depth to research this and suggests the migration happened about 20 generations before the formal beginning of the viking age (i.e. the raid on Lindisfarne in year 793).

Heyerdahl being an archeologist did excavations around the Azov(Tanais river)-area with the black sea in Russia, and encountered many objects linked to the vikings. His book tells how Odin and his people possibly were refugees from Troy, i.e. modern day Turkey, escaping the romans - migrating first to the area of the Don river/Azov - which also carries the etymological link through its name to Asgaard - home of the Azirs(Aesirs in norse mythology)

Heyerdahl also did excavations in Azerbaijan to support his theory. Both Azerbaijan and Russia with the Azov-area has to this date people that call themselves "The Odin people" (Udin in Azerbaijan, but pronounces as Odin) that have pale complexions and red/blonde hair. In those days such a migration could be done by horse as short as 2-3 weeks according to him. Considering Odin potentially had thousands of followers it might have taken 2-3 months - but eitherway; Heyerdahl was convinced to his death that this was the origin of Odin - and now to my suspicion the Q-haplogroup in Scandinavia.
 
I am hap Q1a3*, which is not American Indian. Me and lots of my American Vick cousins are descended from a 1670s immigrant to Virginia. We strongly suspect he was from southwest England because almost all immigrants to Virginia at that time were from England and because the name Vick is most common in Great Britain in the southwest. The closest European relative we have found is Norwegian. We have found no British hap Q relatives.

We have speculated that we had a Viking ancestor hence our surname Vick.

Familytreedna dot com has a YDNA Q project some of you might find interesting. Our Vick results are under Q-M346 Group 2.

I understant that Faux and others have reseached European Q but these results are not in the public domain.

(Our English noun 'Viking' derives from the Old Norse word vikingr, from vík = 'bay, inlet, small creek', where the adventurers kept their boats, they having a shallow-draft)
An email from the FTDNA Q-Project Administrator says, "It now is clear that your group is one of only two in Europe that are positive for the Q1a3a branch [French-UK and Nordic-UK; your Smith line is thought to be in the Nordic-UK group]."
My designated Yorkshire SMITH male line is Q1a3a (L53, L55, L213, L331, {L343.X}, L475, L476, Z796, Z797, Z798, Z799, Z800, Z801, Z802, Z803, Z804, Z805, Z806). We all know that Q1a3a is the forefather of Amerindians, descended from those who crossed the Bering Straits (by land bridge or boat) during the of the last ice age (c.22,000 - 12,000 years BCE) before glacial melting again raised oceanic water levels. It is the only haplogroup found in both Scandi-Western Europe and the Americas.

Cheers,
Baikal in Berkeley
 
The mystery is how the Eskimos crossed the rough Atlantic? They had only kayaks.

The mystery is how the Eskimos crossed the rough Atlantic? They had only kayaks.
Physically you can cross it on kayak if lucky, but there is not much room to bring food on little kayak, and they would need to do it in a group, at least male and female.

There were larger craft used among the Inuit (native word preferred to foreign name "Eskimo") called Umiaks, that held families.
 
There were larger craft used among the Inuit (native word preferred to foreign name "Eskimo") called Umiaks, that held families.
Do you find it more likely they've could have crossed the Atlantic with Vikings, in their big boats or even going through land and ice around Arctic from the East?
 

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