The question of the origin of the Finns is still the subject of a number of, sometimes contradictory, theories. The excavations carried out in Southern Finland indicate that stone-age people lived here 9,000 years ago, that is, they appeared here immediately after the retreat of the glacier.
Finds made in 1996 in Wolf Cave, located in Western Finland in the province of Pohyanmaa in the territory of the municipality of Karjoki, have been interpreted by many researchers as tangible evidence of Neanderthals being here. The minimum age of the finds was estimated at 40 thousand years. The artifacts of the Wolf Cave are unique: prior to their discovery, the most ancient evidence of human presence in Northern Europe dates back to about 8500 BC – the most ancient found remains of settlements in Denmark, Norway, the Baltic States, Finland and Sweden date back to this period.
On the territory of modern Finland, remnants of the most ancient settlements were found in the area bounded by the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia and Lake Ladoga, while the more northern areas were still occupied by gradually receding continental ice. These ancient inhabitants were hunters, gatherers and fishermen (the oldest fishing net found is kept in the National Museum in Helsinki). Regarding what language they spoke, there is no consensus. There is an opinion that these could be the languages of the Ural language family (to which the modern Finnish language also belongs), since it is reliably known about the prevalence of languages of this group in the territories where the European part of Russia and the Baltic States are located now.
The most likely way to shape the Finnish population was to mix up the indigenous and alien populations. The data of the gene analysis show that the modern gene pool of the Finns is 20-25% represented by the Baltic genotype, about 25% is Siberian and 25-50% German.
However, over the centuries up to the 20th century, the composition of the population was stable due to poor contacts with residents of other countries. The predominant type of marriage was marriage among residents of the same settlement or a limited region. This explains that among the Finns there are up to 30 hereditary diseases, which in other countries are either completely unknown or extremely rare. This speaks in favor of the fact that for a long time Finland did not survive the waves of resettlement, and initially the population was extremely small.
Prehistoric cultures of Suomusjjärvi, groove comb, pottery ceramics, Kiukays and a number of others were represented in Finland. Kiukays culture was a peculiar hybrid of Indo-European culture of battle axes and Ural-tongue-and-groove culture of pottery-comb; she formed the basis of the later Finnish ethnos.
Recently, historians are inclined to believe that for 1000−1500 years BC. in the Bronze Age there was a prehistoric Finnish language spoken by the aborigines. Then, on the basis of contacts between them and the tribes speaking Finno-Finnish dialect, modern Finnish appeared. Later the Saami were also transferred to this language.
A millennium after Tacitus, it became possible to talk about the existence of three branches of the population:
Finns, who lived in the south-west of the country or sum (suomi) ;
Tavasty – in Central and Eastern Finland or Yemen ;
Karely – in South-Eastern Finland to Lake Ladoga.
In many ways, they were different from each other and often hostile to each other. Having pushed aside the Sámi to the north, they did not even have time to merge into one nationality.
Sources:
Essays on the history of Finland from ancient times to the beginning of the 20th century
Brief history of Finland
The history of the Finnish people
Historiallinen Arkisto (“Historical Archive”) // Periodicals of the Finnish Historical Society.