Between Hokkaido and Kamchatka: who, when and how colonized the Kuril Islands

The Kuril Islands are conventionally considered to be a continuation of the Japanese archipelago, both geographically and culturally, and were settled from the south. The absolute domination of this point of view has very deep roots, but recently new data have begun to appear that somewhat complicate this already generally accepted suggestion. This article is the first attempt to collect and summarize these new materials. Our observations allow very cautiously conclude that the first inhabitants of the Kuril Islands could have had different roots: Hokkaido on the southern islands, and Kamchatka on the northern ones. This is revealed by obvious differences in the material culture and the time of peopling various groups of the Kuril Islands. An analysis of the distribution of the main types of ceramic ware allows us to draw the boundary between the southern and north-central Kuril Islands along the Friz Strait, which separates Iturup and Urup islands, and data on the geochemical composition of obsidian along the Bussol Strait, which separates Urup and Simushir islands. In addition, anthropological data clearly indicate that approximately 2500–2000 years ago, i.e., even in pre-Okhotsk times, some of the ancestors of modern Koryaks and Itelmens went down to the south as far as Iturup island and had an impact on the gene pool of the indigenous population of Hokkaido. This interval is associated with the initial peopling of the central islands by “southerners” (bearers of the Epijomon culture), where they could meet “northerners” (ancient inhabitants of southern Kamchatka), who had already settled the northern part of the Kuril Ridge by that time.