The Neolithic of the Kurile Islands (Russian Far East): Current State and Future Prospects

Kuzmin, Yaroslav V.; Yanshina, Oksana; Fitzpatrick, Scott M.; Шубина, О. А.

doi:10.1080/15564894.2011.652762

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…One of the oldest sites in northern Sakhalin, Bolshaya Rechka 7, dates to 6210 ± 40 BP (AA-36905). On the Kurile Islands, the chronology of the main cultural phases has been established (Vasilevsky et al 2009(Vasilevsky et al , 2010Kuzmin et al 2012b). The earliest occupation of the southern Kuriles is now securely dated to -7000 BP at the Yankito site on Iturup Island (Yanshina and Kuzmin 2010).…”

Section: Other Important Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiocarbon Chronology for Prehistoric Complexes of the Russian Far East: 15 Years Later

Kuzmin¹

2012

Radiocarbon

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ABSTRACT. The recent progress in radiocarbon dating of the prehistoric cultural complexes in the Russian Far East is discussed against the background of ancient chronologies for greater East Asia. Since 1997, the wide use of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating along with the continuation of conventional dating has allowed us to establish the age of several key Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Paleometal sites. It has also contributed to advancing a deeper understanding of the timing for the beginning of pottery production, maritime adaptation, and agriculture, and several other important issues in prehistoric chronology for the studied region. Reservoir age correction values for the Japan and Okhotsk seas are now used to adjust the age for samples of marine origin. Some of the cultural-chronological models for prehistoric far eastern Russian complexes put forward in the last 10 yr lack a solid basis, and are critically evaluated herein.

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Section: Other Important Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiocarbon Chronology for Prehistoric Complexes of the Russian Far East: 15 Years Later

Kuzmin¹

2012

Radiocarbon

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“…The Kuril Islands have been occupied periodically since at least the mid-Holocene—some islands earlier—and archaeologists have studied the culture history of the region for over 100 years (Fitzhugh et al, 2002; Kuzmin et al, 1998, 2012; Ohyi, 1975; Shubin, 1977, 1991; Stashenko and Gladyshev, 1977; Torii, 1919; Vasilevsky and Shubina, 2006; Yamada, 1999; Yamaura, 1998; Yanshina et al, 2009). Aside from the most recent Russian and Japanese settlement of the Kuril Islands, all cultural occupations were based on hunting and gathering of marine mammals, fish, birds, eggs and to a lesser degree shellfish (Fitzhugh et al, 2004).…”

Section: Cultural Occupation Of the Kuril Islandsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Archaeologists have reported possible Palaeolithic remains from Kunashir, Iturup and Shumshu islands (Nomura and Sugiura, 1995; Tezuka, 2011, p. 170), but according to Kuzmin et al (2012, p. 239) no Paleolithic “artifacts from undisturbed contexts have yet been recorded”. The earliest confirmed occupation of the Kurils is found on Iturup Island and dates between 7500–8000 cal BP (Yankito 1 and 2: Yanshina and Kuzmin 2010).…”

Section: Cultural Occupation Of the Kuril Islandsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience and the population history of the Kuril Islands, Northwest Pacific: A study in complex human ecodynamics

Fitzhugh

Gjesfjeld

Brown

et al. 2016

Quaternary International

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Living in remote places can strain the adaptive capacities of human settlers. It can also protect communities from external social, political and economic forces. In this paper, we present an archaeological population history of the Kuril Islands. This string of small volcanic islands on the margins of the Northwest Pacific was occupied by maritime hunting, fishing and gathering communities from the mid-Holocene to recent centuries. We bring together (1) 380 new and previously published archaeological radiocarbon dates, (2) a new paleodemographic model based on a radiocarbon-timestamped temporal frequency distribution of archaeological deposits, (3) recently published paleoclimate trends, and (4) recently published archaeological proxy evidence for changes in the extent of social networks. We demonstrate that, over the last two millennia, inhabitants of the Kuril Islands underwent dramatic demographic fluctuations. Explanations of these fluctuations are considered in the context of environmental hazards, social networks and the emergence of an East Asian “World System”, elucidating the tension between local and external adaptive strategies to social and ecological uncertainty. Results suggest that population resilience to local climate and environmental variability was achieved by virtue of social networks that maintained non-local support in times of crisis. Conversely, the expansion of the East Asian political economy into neighboring regions of the southern margin of the Kuril Islands perhaps in conjunction with exposure to epidemic diseases appears to have undermined the adaptive strategies, resulting in an increase in the vulnerability of Kuril populations to environmental fluctuations.

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“…Early archaeological investigations in the Kuril Islands were conducted in the southern and northern islands by Japanese archaeologists in the 1930s (Baba, 1937(Baba, , 1939Baba & Oka, 1938). Later, research by Russian archaeologists (Zaitseva et al, 1993;Shubin, 1994;Vasilevsky & Shubina, 2006;Kuzmin et al, 2012) focused mainly in the same areas, although many sites were documented throughout the island chain (summarized in Vasilevsky, 2009). Recent work added to and extended the list of sites and the number of radiocarbon dates, especially in the central region: the International Kuril Island Project (IKIP) brought a team of archaeologists to the island chain in 2000 (Fitzhugh et al, 2002) and KBP conducted archaeological investigations in 2006-2008 on almost every island in the archipelago (Fitzhugh, 2012).…”

Section: Archaeological Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Combined, the IKIP and KBP projects, with their focus on the sparsely studied central islands built an archaeological radiocarbon database of over 400 dates from archaeological locales spread from Kunashir in the southwest to Shumshu in the northeast. More recent research in the South Kuril islands of Kunashir and Iturup has further clarified both the radiocarbon and ceramic chronologies of the earlier occupations on these islands (Vasilevsky & Shubina, 2006; Shubina & Samarin appendix in Fitzhugh et al, 2009a; Yanshina, Kuzmin, & Burr, 2009; Yanshina & Kuzmin, 2010; Kuzmin et al, 2012). Additional radiocarbon dates from KBP will be published in the near future, and are consistent with the overall outlines of prior research (see Fitzhugh, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controlling for Landform Age When Determining the Settlement History of the Kuril Islands

2014

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Archaeological investigations of settlement patterns in dynamic landscapes can be strongly biased by the evolution of the Earth’s surface. The Kuril Island volcanic arc exemplifies such a dynamic landscape, where landscape-modifying geological forces were active during settlement, including sea-level changes, tectonic emergence, volcanic eruptive processes, coastal aggradation, and dune formation. With all these ongoing processes, in this paper we seek to understand how new landscape formation in the Holocene might bias archaeological interpretations of human settlement in the Kurils. Resolving this issue is fundamental to any interpretation of human settlement history derived from the distribution and age of archaeological sites from the region. On the basis of a comparison of landform ages and earliest archaeological occupation ages on those landforms, we conclude that landform creation did not significantly bias our aggregate archaeological evidence for earliest settlement. Some sections of the archipelago have larger proportions of landform creation dates closer to archaeological evidence of settlement and undoubtedly some archaeological sites have been lost to geomorphic processes. However, comparisons between regions reveal comparable archaeological establishment patterns irrespective of geomorphic antiquity.

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The Neolithic of the Kurile Islands (Russian Far East): Current State and Future Prospects

Cited by 17 publications

References 32 publications

Radiocarbon Chronology for Prehistoric Complexes of the Russian Far East: 15 Years Later

Radiocarbon Chronology for Prehistoric Complexes of the Russian Far East: 15 Years Later

Resilience and the population history of the Kuril Islands, Northwest Pacific: A study in complex human ecodynamics

Controlling for Landform Age When Determining the Settlement History of the Kuril Islands

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