Outi Vesakoski

In this paper, we present an interactive web mapping service designed to display spatial historical data for both scientific and general audiences. The service, Uralic Historical Atlas (URHIA), was developed using user-centered design framework with Uralic linguistics researchers as the primary end-users. The platform is based on GeoNode, a local spatial data infrastructure supported by the University of Turku. Originally focused on Uralic language datasets, the platform has since been expanded to serve as other data collections as well. For example, we introduce the Archaeological Artefact Atlas as a developing case study. This paper outlines the technical solutions behind URHIA and highlights how it enhances research accessibility and usability for a broad audience.

In this paper, we present a new digitized version of the Dialect Atlas of Finnish and offer the data as open access. The Atlas was compiled in the early 1920s and 1930s to document the variation of Finnish language. It provides the only description of Finland’s historical linguistic landscape before urbanization and media began to homogenize the dialectal differences. The Atlas was digitized at the turn of the millennium, and a corrected version by us was published online by the Institute of Finnish Languages ten years ago. Here we provide an improved version of the Atlas in a more user-friendly format, along with description of the linguistic traits. Additionally, we supplement the Atlas with polygons indicating the border of historical municipalities (study points), enabling spatial analyses and visualization. The selected data formats are the same used recently in dialectometric studies, which we briefly describe. This data release will improve accessibility and reusability of the Atlas.

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world’s languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world’s most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2,400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world's languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world's most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition and culture will be seriously fragmented.

The prey naïveté hypothesis suggests that the failure of prey to recognize novel predators as a threat is caused by a lack of anti-predator adaptations. We tested this hypothesis in a unique natural setting, where the isopod Idotea balthica encountered the rapidly spreading invasive crab, Rhithropanopeus harrissii. Earlier research had indicated high mortality of the isopods during exposure to R. harrissii. The isopod exerted no co-evolutionary history with any littoral crabs and thus the strong impact could be caused by lack of pre-adaptations towards the new predator species. We tested this hypothesis by studying the anti-predator responses of the isopods with water-born cues of R. harrissii and of the native predatory fish Perca fluviatilis. Compared to control water, the isopods lowered their activity when exposed to the fish cue. Instead crab cue did not induce anti-predator behaviour. We also tested the hypothesis that mortality caused by novel predator, similar to predation by P. fluviatilis, would result in differential selection for the two sexes and contribute to the evolution of personalities. However, we found no differences in anti-predator behaviour nor in mortality between the sexes or personalities of the isopods. The outcomes reveal an interesting evolutionary scenario, where predation by a local predator induce soft selection on prey characteristics, but an invasive species cause hard selection without differentiating between prey individuals. Our study—conducted in the dawn of the population outbreak of R. harrissii—provides an excellent reference point for studies resolving the evolutionary impacts of invasive predators on naïve prey.

This paper presents theUralic Areal Typology Online(UraTyp 1.0), a typological dataset of 35 Uralic languages and a total of 360 features, mainly covering the levels of morphology, syntax, and phonology. The features belong to two different datasets: 195 features’ definitions originate from the Grambank (GB) database, developed for comparison of world language typology, whereas 165 features (UT) have been designed specifically to describe the typological variation within the Uralic language family. We present a series of analyses of the dataset demonstrating its scope and possibilities. The complete data set correctly identifies the main Uralic subgroups in a Principal Components Analysis, whereas GB data alone is insufficiently granular to detect this family-internal structure. Similar analyses limited to various typological subdomains also give variable results. A model-based admixture analysis identifies four distinct areas of historical interaction: Saami, Finnic, the Volga area and Ob-Ugric.

The prey naïveté hypothesis suggests that the failure of prey to recognize novel predators as a threat is caused by a lack of anti-predator adaptations. We tested this hypothesis in a unique natural setting, where the isopod Idotea balthica encountered the rapidly spreading invasive crab, Rhithropanopeus harrissii. Earlier research had indicated high mortality of the isopods during exposure to R. harrissii. The isopod exerted no co-evolutionary history with any littoral crabs and thus the strong impact could be caused by lack of pre-adaptations towards the new prey species. We tested this hypothesis by studying the anti-predator responses of the isopods with water-born cues of R. harrissii and of the native predatory fish Perca fluviatilis. Compared to control water, the isopods lowered their activity when exposed to the fish cue. Instead crab cue did not induce anti-predator behaviour. We also tested our own hypothesis that mortality caused by novel predator would cause – similarly as predation by P. fluviatilis – differing selection for the two sexes and contribute to the evolution of personalities. However we found no differences in anti-predator behaviour nor in mortality between the sexes or personalities of the isopods. The outcomes reveal an interesting evolutionary scenario, where predation by local predator induce soft selection on prey characteristics, but invasive species cause hard selection without differentiating between prey individuals. Our study – conducted in the dawn of the population outbreak of R. harrissii - provides an excellent reference point for studies resolving the evolutionary impacts of invasive predators on naïve prey.

The role of open spatial data is growing in human-history research. Spatiality can be utilized to bring together and seamlessly examine data describing multiple aspects of human beings and their environment. Web-based spatial data platforms can create equal opportunities to view and access these data. In this paper, we aim at advancing the development of user-friendly spatial data platforms for multidisciplinary research. We conceptualize the building process of such a platform by systematically reviewing a diverse sample of historical spatial data platforms and by piloting a user-centered design process of a multidisciplinary spatial data platform. We outline (1) the expertise needed in organizing multidisciplinary spatial data sharing, (2) data types that platforms should be able to handle, (3) the most useful platform functionalities, and (4) the design process itself. We recommend that the initiative and subject expertise should come from the end-users, i.e., scholars of human history, and all key end-user types should be involved in the design process. We also highlight the importance of geographic expertise in the process, an important link between subject, spatial and technical viewpoints, for reaching a common understanding and common terminology. Based on the analyses, we identify key development goals for spatial data platforms, including full layer management functionalities. Moreover, we identify the main roles in the user-centered design process, main user types and suggest good practices including a multimodal design workshop.

Contributing to multidisciplinary studies of human population history, this paper presents an analysis chain to comprehensively model the historical travel environment in Finland, based on a study of spatial patterns of overall accessibility within the country. We created a spatial historical travel environment model over the whole country using high-quality terrain and landscape spatial data, combined with information from historical sources that characterize the landscape in terms of travel effort given the environmental and human-related factors current up until the late 19th century. Spatial analyses of historical travel effort based on the travel environment model indicate travel speeds for different parts of the country, ranging from 0.6 to 5.3 km/h. This is nearly a tenfold range, potentially highly significant for studies relying on historical travel effort and contacts between population groups in Finland. The results show that the overall travel effort in southern Finland is significantly smaller than in the north: almost all areas in southern Finland have average travel speeds above 3 km/h, whereas the average travel speeds below 2.5 km/h are typical in the north. A more detailed study using random 100 km transects highlights the variability of the least-cost routes in different landscapes and between different source data combinations in each cost surface. The paper identifies great potential in combining the existing spatial data archives with archaeological, linguistic, and genetic data in a GIS analysis, to study the travel effort and its impact on the observed spatial patterns of languages, genetic traits, and archaeological findings.