Velda is a name given to the hypothetical ancestress of the Cantabrian people and Haplogroup V (mtDNA). She was coined in the book The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes. Theoretically, based on DNA studies, she lived in the region of the Cantabrian mountains about 15,000 BC. Even today, Haplogroup V is found with particularly high concentrations in the people of Cantabria (15%) of northern Iberia but specially in the Sami people of northern Scandinavia: Swedish Sami (68%), Finnish Sami (37%) and Norwegian Sami (33%).
Seventeen thousand years ago the plains of northern Europe were completely deserted; all life, animal and human, was compressed into the Ukraine, southern France, Italy and the Iberian peninsula. Velda, the fourth of the seven daughters, lived in northern Spain in the mountains of Cantabria, a few miles behind what is now the port of Santander. Today, about 5% of native Europeans belong to the clan of Velda; they are more frequent in western Europe than in the east. Many of Velda’s children have travelled a long way from Velda’s home in the hills of Cantabria. A small group found there was as far north as it is possible to travel, reaching the very top of Scandinavia, where they are to be found among present-day Saami of Finland and northern Norway.»