[thaumasiotes]

> Either you have stumbled on something that is not taken seriously, or you are misunderstanding the consensus.

I'm not sure you have a good grasp on the meaning of the word "recent". A recent theory, by definition, must differ from the consensus.

> There is no credible theory to that effect.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.13.584607v2

Granted, they don't say "Finland". They say "the northeast along the Baltic coastline".

[HeinzStuckeIt]

Yes, I’m afraid that you are still misunderstanding the research. Your linked article speaks about gene flow associated with the movement of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers to Scandinavia, but later Proto-Germanic formed in southern Scandinavia according to the longstanding consensus. This is clearly spelled out in the abstract: “Following the disintegration of Proto-Germanic, we find by 1650 BP a southward push from Southern Scandinavia.”

There’s no new theory here at all, just some nice archaeogenetic evidence to support a quite traditional view. FWIW, I work in a closely related field and am constantly reading Germanic–Finnic and Baltic–Finnic contact literature, and I can assure you this is old-hat stuff.

[thaumasiotes]

Do you think I'm misunderstanding something other than that I'm not drawing the same distinction between proto-Germanic and "paleo-Germanic" that that paper appeals to?

You've quoted something that says after proto-Germanic had diversified, daughter lineages left southern Scandinavia to establish themselves elsewhere in the world.

But I pointed out a completely different idea in the paper, that before proto-Germanic diversified, about 2000 years before the time you mention, its speakers arrived in Scandinavia from "the northeast coast of the Baltic".

[HeinzStuckeIt]

Your post above wrote “the location of the proto-Germanic speakers”. Terminology matters; Proto-Germanic is something strictly defined as to what it was, with a longstanding consensus about where and when it was. If you wanted to talk about pre-Proto-Germanic speakers (or “Paleo-Germanic” speakers as this paper does, though I suspect some would quibble with that term used for a very early date), then you could have done so.

Moreover, you posted about a “new theory”, but the paper here only gives new evidence for an old theory.