The Selkup (Russian: селькупы, romanized: sel'kupy) are a Samoyedic speaking Uralic ethnic group native to Siberia.

The Selkups originated in the middle basin of the Ob River, from interactions between the aboriginal Yeniseian population and Samoyedic peoples that came to the region from the Sayan Mountains during the early part of the first millennium CE.

During the Soviet period, the Selkups were forced to adopt a settled lifestyle and their traditional culture witnessed a severe decline.

[7] According to a recent genetic study, subclade Q1a2a1-L54 was mainly found in Yeniseian (Ket) and Samoyedic (Enets and Selkup) speakers.

In view of the time estimates the researchers postulated that Q1a2a1-L54 had migrated from the southern Altai region and was assimilated into Yeniseian and Samoyedic speaking populations during a recent historical period.

[5] The Northern Selkup moved north when Russians started colonizing Siberia.

[9] In 1911-1912 and 1914, the expeditions of the Finnish linguist and ethnographer Kai Reinhold Donner (1888-1935) were engaged in studying the language, folklore, everyday culture and the traditional way of life of the Selkups.