AToE: There are basically two paths of migration into Europe and NA, as far as I know - from Africa, straight up through Europe, and From Africa, though Asia, Russia, and then into NA/Northern Scandinavia. This is based on Africa as the origin of the first humans.
Oh it makes total sense now that I think about it, people go back and forth all over the place and always have (no reason for people to have just migrated ever further from Africa without ever looping back around, especially since back then our population was so tiny, it's hardly like you'd be looping back onto heavily occupied ground).
What has me so surprised about the Sami isn't that they turned around back towards Europe (thought this did surprise me a bit, and I guess it's not really "back" to those people, as I believe the original migration to Asia out of Africa followed the coastline roughly, around the south... so I guess it's more like "up and around" than "back" ;D).
What surprised me was that they maintained a unique ethnic look about them that is fairly distinct from the rest of Europe. Of course, there are many ethnicities in Europe that look plenty different, but I'm surprised that after so long, with so much interbreeding with even-more-native-Europeans ("caucasians" would have been there even before the Sami's came there I'd imagine?) that they maintained a fair bit of a North Asian look about them. I'm surprised they didn't just end up looking totally European.
Smarrikåka: I'm talking about the sami, yes. They don't look like they just got out of a plane from Hong Kong, but they do have the same features. I guess, like AToE points out, that the Sami, as they look now, have had more contact, and thus more mating with, white europeans, and thus have more european features than some of the other people that migrated east. For some reason, I believe the Inuit and NA Indians have been more isolated.
The Sami definitely have clear Asian features, but they're also clearly the features of people who've been seperated for a long time from Asia, not like if you take a half Japanese half German person or something.
Yeah, definitely for "some reason" the people's of North and South America definitely were more isolated! (It's kinda funny actually, I guess a Native from the tip of South America would be the descendant of the people who travelled the absolute furthest from our home in Africa...).
Speaking of our place of origin as a species, I'm super excited, me and my ex are going on a trip to Ethiopia this summer. I figured I might as well start my travels in the place where it all really did start!