• see map sketch: „Indigenous people of Siberia“
  

These small northern peoples pertain to various language families and were initially settling farther south:

• Finno-Ugric: Kthanty and Mansi
• Samoyeds: Nents and Ngasans
  
• Manchu-Tungusic: Evens (Lamuts) and Evenks (Tungusic)
  
• Paleo-Siberian: Ket people, Chuckchi people, Yukaghir people and others in the Far East

Today there are known some 6,000 to 7,000 spoken languages, which have about 400 to 500 separated lines or family. The Uralic language with its 30 to 40 language branches was somehow larger than an average family. Due to the number of people speaking an Uralic language, it was a relatively small unity in regard to its territorial expansion, but one of the larger families on our planet and an "old" family, this is, being developed a very long time ago.

One of the important unsolved questions regarding human language is its development in pre-historic time, in a society of hunters and gatherers within the Boreal eco-system in Central Asia and Eurasia. An essential factor for such a change seems to have been at least with many "old" language families that there has been existent a so-called evolution, this is a rapid development within the economy in combination with increasing affluence, especially agriculture and selective breeding, and, in connection therewith, a subsequent enormous increase in population as well as social changes. It is especially important to note that the development of today's big language families is not necessarily to be ascribed to migrations or catastrophies. Main processes were the consequence of language assimilation or language shifts, whereby the diversity of languages has become extinct in favour of an expansive family. This means, hence, that genetic diversity has become extinct, this is the number of branches of a language family, with the number of separate languages remaining relatively stable. For this reason, there were to be found many languages in pre-historic times, assuming that the population in total reached several millions in the Neolithic period, even many more. This seems to be a reasonable but rather unprecise estimation if we assume that the average language society consisted of about 500 people. There may have existed, though, more than 10,000 actively spoken languages in the period before the development of the language families that are known today. It is, however, difficult to estimate how many lines these pre-historic languages had; the number thereof, however, must have been by far larger than it is today, as the conditions for the expansion of language were rather unfavourable. All pre-historic languages more or less had the same chance in their lines from ancestors to present representatives, but only a few of these actually succeeded and survived. It could be said that all pre-historic languages were permanently threatened by extinction, just as it is the case nowadays. In this sense, Uralic had been an "endangered" language until it stated to expand and spread.

It is, however, without any doubt that Uralic languages with the so-called Altai languages, including Turkic, Mongolian, Tungusic, Korean and Japanese, belonged to a trans-Eurasian belt. In this case there are parallelities with their neighbouring ones, so that this area may be designated as a Uralic-Altaian language. Deviations may be found especially with the prototypcial Uralic-Altaian language, and these only in some branches, especially in the West with the Finnish, Sami and and in the North with the Samoyed languages; in the East with the Korean and Japanese languages; there may, however, still be observed a fundamental typological orientation within this trans-continental border area. The Uralic-Altaian border area is defined by clear areas which determine a language type against its neighbours, in the north with the Jukagyr, Chamchuck, in the south with the Indo-European, with the Sino-Tibetians as well as in the Far East with the Ghilyak languages of the Nivkh people and the Ainu. Along the fringe areas of the Uralic-Altaian border line there may be observed some examples of incremental assimilation and adaptation, such as in the case of the Northern Chinese or of several Turk and Mongolian tribes in the region Amdo Qinghai.
It is to be noted that there were further existent parallelities in area and typology, with reference to the Uralic and the non-Uralic-Altaian neighbours thereof, especially with the Indo-European language family. Uralic and Indo-European families are important, as well as Turk, Mongolian, Tungusic, Jukagyr, Amur (Ghilyak) and Chamchuck languages; they all belong to the so-called Mitian language, wherein there were contained the roots of the personal pronouns, which are used - as in may other languages - as personal markers.

This language community among the Uralic speaking population was associated with a variety of factors pertaining to other fields than language, it was connected with economic and population growth, influenced by cultural and political conditions. If only numerical proportions were considered, we could conclude that the original Uralic language was very similar to the modern Hungarian language. We do, however, know that the Hungarian pronunciation did constitute a local complex, by its physical contact with the Central European. These particularities are also existent in the neighbouring languages, including the Roman, Serbian and Slovak languages. There is not nearly a Uralic speaking population that is farther from this Proto-Uralic than the Hungarian language. Another similar example of another language family: the Turkish language is nowadays the "largest" Turkic language in regard to the number of people speaking. This could lead to the wrong implication that the modern Turks in Turkey represent a physically "original" type of the Turkic speaking people. Nothing, however, is less true, as in fact Turkish was only spoken in the second half of the first millenium B.C., and predominantly by the "Asian" population settling in the region of today's Mongolia. Due to demographic, cultural and political reasons, the Turk languages then spread in Central Asia and Eurasia as far as Turkey, while in Mongolia these languages were more or less extinguished by the expansion of the Mongolian language family. It could be said that the modern Mongols in Mongolia are more or less direct descendants of the old Turks, while the modern Turks in Turkey are more or less a direct continuation of an old local population in Anatolia, who have historically included a number of non-Turk languages, i.e. the Hattic of the Hattians or the Armenian and the Byzantine Greek languages.

We do not exactly know whether a first development of a Proto-Uralic language also included branches oriented towards the west, it is, however, still possible that a Proto-Samoyed family moved eastwards, while a Proto-Finnish-Ugric family remained in its original position.
It is, however, notable that in the Minusinsk Basin at the Upper Yenisei there could be developd a Proto-Samoyed language for the very first time. This area represents a compact region having an extraordinarily well documented sequence of archaeological cultures, starting in the Copper Age over the Bronze and the Early Iron Age with the cultures of the Afanassiewo (3500-2500. B.C.), Okunewo (2500-2000 B.C.), Andronowo (2000-1400 B.C.), Karasuk (1500-800 B.C.), Tagar (900-600 B.C.), Pazyrik (600-200 B.C.) and Tashtyk „Hunno-Sarmatian“ (100 v. Chr. - 200 B.C.) up to the Yenisei Kirghiz (from 400 A.D.) to the Mongols (from 1300 A.D.) on and later the conquests of the Russian Tsars (from the 17th century on).

Without turning to the question of a probable Proto-Uralic presence in the Minusinsk Basin, it is relatively safe to say that the ethnolinguistic history of the region is to be viewed backwards, leading to the invasion of the Turkic (later Yenisei Turk), which was terminated by a Tashtyk (or Hunnitic) period in this region. The historic distribution of the local ethno-linguistic groups strongly emphasizes that the dominant language in the Minusink Bais before the Turk lingua was the language of the Tashtyk culture, following the Tagar culture; wherein this is supposed to have had Samoyed elements (Proto-Samoyed language). There have been speculations on the possible language identity of the Karasuk, Andronowo, Okunewo and Afanassiewo culture, while nothing really can be documented for sure. Also Indo-German elements in the Samoyed may indiciate that an early form of an eastern Indo-European (Proto-Tocharic) language was present in the region, either in the advance of or concurrently with the Samoyed culture.

The Nenets have their origin in the Altai-Sajan Mountains and then assimilated, after moving downwards along the River Ob, with the fishers and hunters settling there. They still live as hunters and breeders along the Arctic coast in the west and east of the Ural. The Nenet people have been endangered by the exploitation of the huge oil and gas extraction which promotes the large-scale destruction of the grassing areas for reindeers.

The Khanty and the Mansi people (earlier Ob-Ugric - Voguls and Ob-Ostyaks) developed out of the combination of autochtonous fishing and hunting tribes with horse breeders from the Central-Asian area, the Upper Irtysch, who moved northwards in the middle of the 1st century A.D. They have settled, e.g., in the central Ob area.
By way of their Finno-Ugric descendance, the Khanty people are related with the Finnish, Karelians and the Estonians. These fishermen were discovered in the 11th century by Norwegian researchers. Nowadays their life-style is endangered by oil extraction, too.

(2) Rouran (Ruan Ruan – Juan Juan – Quryqan)
Comparable historic findings, from the region around the Lake Baikal, may probably be ascribed to the ancestors of the Yakuts, the Quryqan (Rouran), who settled concurrently with the Hsiung-nu – Xiongnu in the Altai - in the 3rd century B.C. to the 4th century A.D.– more information also: Hsiung-nu - Xiongnu

These groups domesticated reindeers, which pulled the sleighs for transports or carried heavy loads. The tribes of the Vitim-Olekma, Jukagir and Orochons had up to 100 reindeers and used them also for riding or hunting. They were very mobile and moved enormous distances in search of good grassing areas for their herds. During their halts in the calving season, they erected fences and created fire sites in order to keep off mosquitos and midges. They trimmed antlers, castrated reindeers and cared for the sick and ill. Reindeers were only slaughtered if the family suffered from a famine, if the hunt had been without any success, or if they had no luck when fishing.
They mainly lived on fish and deer. They drank tea before their meals. They preferred cooked meat in a broth, while meat and fish were roasted on rods. In summer they consumed maire's milk, which was added to tea and enriched with berries and which was also used for making butter. Gathering was only a secondary task.
The steppe tribes practised nomad breeding (horses, sheep). They lived in local groups and had blacksmiths, and they processed bones, horn, animal hides, and they carved wood. They further produced househould accomodities from wood or birch, and they made meshes for fishing from nettles. They built birch wood boats, produced covers, saddles, sleighs, skis, carpets and saddle bags.
Their clothes were made from reindeer skin (rovduga) or other fabrics, with the clothes being decorated with belts made of fur, fringes, horse's hair, metal medaillons and so on. The women had their hair knotted on the top of their heads, wrapped by pearl bands (chireptun).

They hunted hoofed and fur bearing animals, practised seasonal fishing (summer and winter), and in the Taiga they lived on reindeer breeding. There were also groups who practised a semi-nomadic or nomadic life style. Their annual movements from one grassing area to the next were interrupted when it was calving or mating season. These interruptions were used for hunting or fishing. In summer, they moved to higher situated grassing areas in dry territories (at the ridge or on the hillside), in autumn and spring they were mainly living in basins, near lakes or forests. These annual cycles were determined by local weather conditions and the climate. In December and in July, there were organized big clan gatherings on the occasion of midsummer celebrations, which were called suglan.

Traditional songs and round dances developed into a repertory of its own and have assumed important functions within the tribe or the family or on the occasion of Shamanistic holy days. The melodies for the dance were improvisations and adapted to the tempo and the rhythm of the circle dance movements. Each regional group developed its own dances. The Evenks also include lyric songs, dance songs, hymns, Shamanist ritual songs and instrumental music in their traditional folcloristic repertory. The songs are in general designated as "Iken" (ik = to sound). Instruments were used for spontaneoulsy improvised music, and some forms, especially wind instruments, were used by hunters to attract animals. Instruments were used while working or in the leisure time, and they served ceremonial rituals. The music was performed on a pluriarc having a can as a soundbox (such as the Mongolian khuuchir) or on a twelve-string box zither. Also a lute having one, two or three strings was used. The Jew's Harp originally consisted of a tendon which was used as a string, the one end of which being held by the teeth of the player and the other one being stretched over the thumb and plucked by a finger of the free hand.

Their traditional nature religion was cleary influenced by Shamanism, apart from the worship of the fire. The Evenk tradition is considered by modern research as a classic, typical form of a nature religion. The term "shaman/chaman/saman" has its roots originally in the Evenk language (Manchu-Tungusic). The world is seen as a river, with its sources being the Heaven and which flows through the world of the peoples. Shamans were a kind of medium, mediators between man and the spiritual world. They called upon helping spirits and used their help for healing the sick and the ill, for finding lost things, for predicting the future, for providing protection for the children and the herds, for easening the pains of giving birth, for granting hunting luck or for accompanying the souls of the deceased into the world of the dead. Their clothes were decorated with medaillons, pictures and iron beads, their heads were garnished by reindeer antlers. They also used drums and rattles, and in their sessions relied on assistants.

The Tungusic languages (also: Manchu-Tungusic) may be summarized into one language family of 12 relatively closely related languages that are spoken in Northern China, in the East-Siberian area of Russia and in parts of Mongolia. The language are often associated in their genetic connex with the Mongolian and Turkic languages into the Altaian language family. Similarities - to a lesser extent also with the Korean, Japanese and some Paleo-Siberian languages - may be explained by a mutual influence (language contacts) and by fundamental cultural terms. The aspect of a possible relationship is, however, still being disputed; their genetic entitiy, however, is undoubted, and thus they may be assigned into three groups:

• Northern Tungusic (Tungusic proper):
  Evenks (Tungusic people), Evens (Lamuts), Reindeer-Evenks (Solon and Oroch people), Oroch people, Negidals
  

• South-Eastern Tungusic (Amur languages):
  Nanai (Gold, Hezhen), Orok, Ulch, Oroch, Udege
  

• South-Western Tungusic (Manchu languages):
  Manchu, Sibe, Jurchen
  

• Arman is generally a dialect of the Evens (Lamuts).

• The Orochian language is in general seen as a dialect of the Evenks by Non-Chinese linguists.
  

• Kile may in general be a dialect spoken by the Nanai.

• Sibe is considered to be a dialect of the Manchu (Jurchen) people - by some Non-Chinese linguists.

• (1) The Sartan Ice Age 12,000 (13,000) to 23,000 (25,000) years ago was the last part of the Pleistocene period. It was the coldest part of the Ice Age (Sartan, Late Valdai, Late Wisconsin). Numerous radiocarbon data from different Siberian areas and from the northern hemisphere indicate that it became very cold some 22,000-23,000 years ago.