Sami People
The Sami peoples have inhabited the northern regions of Scandinavia for thousands of years. Exactly how long is difficult to state with certainty.
Archeological evidence suggests that people along the southern shores of Lake Onega and around Lake Ladoga reached the River Utsjoki in Northern Finnish Lapland before 8100 BC [2]. Other experts trace the Sami presence back to as recently as 2500 years ago. They are the oldest of the peoples represented in the Sami area, and are consequently considered the indigenous population of the area.
Map of the Sami people today
Historically, the Sami inhabited all of Northern Russia, Finland, and Eastern Karelia for a long time, though the Eastern Sami became assimilated into Finnish and Karelian populations after settlers from H?me, Savo, and Karelia migrated into the region. Placenames, e.g. Nuuksio on the south coast of Finland, remain as proof of former Sami settlement. However, Sami people increasingly mixed with Finnish and Scandinavian settlers, losing their culture and language.
A Sami family around 1900
Up to around 1500 the Sami were mainly fishermen and trappers, usually in a combination, leading a nomadic lifestyle decided by the migrations of the reindeer.
A HISTORY OF THE SWEDISH PEOPLE
Where did the Swedes come from?
Most of the written history begins after 600 AD. The little written evidence of Scandinavian history from 100 BC to about 600 AD comes from contemporary writers of history, like Tacitus and Jordanes.
SEXUAL SELECTION AND THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN RACES
Unfortunately, Scandinavians have been in Scandinavia for an even shorter time than American Indians have been in the Amazon. Until about nine thousand years ago, Scandinavia was covered by an ice sheet and could hardly have supported any people, pale-skinned or dark-skinned.
UNCOVERING SCANDINAVIAN ROOTS
Earlier at the end of the first century A.D., Tacitus wrote about people in Scandinavia. He called one of their tribes the Suiones. They were known for having powerful fleets. "The shape of their ships differs from the normal in having a prow at both ends which is always ready to be put into shore" (par. 44, Germania, Penguin Classics translation). That is an accurate description of the Viking longboat.
The Suiones mentioned by Tacitus were also known as the Svear.The word Svear or Sviar is constantly used in the Nordic Sagas to denote the inhabitants of Sweden. Swedish stamps give the name of the country as "Sverige." It comes from Svea rike - meaning "the kingdom of the Svear."
The empire of the Svear was in the territory around Lake Malar near where Stockholm is today. This empire "was called the Lesser Svithiod, or Sweden, in contrast to the Larger Svithiod, or Scythia, from whence they had emigrated" (Vol.1, page 79, Scandinavia by Andrew Crichton and Henry Wheaton).
Great Scythia was the area around the Black and Caspian Seas. When the Svear arrived in Scandinavia, they found the country already inhabited by "the Goths, who had emigrated thither at a remote period, veiled from the eyes of history," says Henry Wheaton in his book History of the Northmen.
SCANDINAVIAN GOTHS
Paul Siding begins his history of Scandinavia by saying, "The present inhabitants of Denmark, as well as of Norway and Sweden, are successors of the enormous Gothic tribe formerly dwelling round about the Black Sea" (page 19, Scandinavian Races).
Notice that both the Svear and the Goths came from the area of the Black Sea. At the mouth of the Danube on the western shore is the area of Getae and Dacia in Roman times. According to Procopius, who wrote his history in the fifth century, Romans "say that the Goths are of the Getic race" (Book V.xxiv,30).
The Getae are mentioned in the history of Herodotus (fifth century B.C.). In the translation by George Rawlinson, his brother Sir Henry gives this footnote: "The identity of the Getae with the Goths of later times is more than a plausible conjecture. It may be regarded as historically certain" (Vol.III, page 84, 1862 edition).
Jordanes, the best known Gothic historian, always speaks of the Getae and Goths as one people. He also calls them "Scythae."
We find more evidence in other historical accounts. For example, "The Pictish Chronicle declares that the Scythians and Goths had a common origin" (page 216, The Races of Ireland and Scotland by W. C. Mackenzie).
The evidence also indicates that the Getae were the same kind of people as the Dacians. They both spoke the same language according to Strabo (7.3.13). Pliny says that the Getae were called Dacians by the Romans (Book IV, xxi, 80). Duchesne, who collected the Norman chronicles in the seventeenth century, has no doubt whatever that the Normans were Dacians and consistently calls them by that name in his preface. Dudo, who wrote the earliest history of the Normans in the tenth century, also had no doubt that they came from Scythia beyond the Danube. He also said they were Dacians.
Solomon
