Drastic demographic events triggered the Uralic spread

Abstract The widespread Uralic family offers several advantages for tracing prehistory: a firm absolute chronological anchor point in an ancient contact episode with well-dated Indo-Iranian; other points of intersection or diagnostic non-intersection early Indo-European (the Late Proto-Indo-European-speaking Yamnaya culture the western steppe, Afanasievo upper Yenisei, and Fatyanovo middle Volga); lexical morphological reconstruction sufficient to establish critical absences sharings contacts. We add information on climate, linguistic geography, typology, cognate frequency distributions reconstruct origin spread. argue that homeland was east Urals initially out Indo-European. spread rapid without shared substratal effects. its cause as interconnected reactions populations catastrophic climate change interregionalization opportunities which advantaged riverine hunter-fishers over herders.