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An Illustrated Companion to Japanese Archaeology. Edited by Werner Steinhaus and Simon Kaner. Archaeopress, Oxford. 2016. ISBN 978-1-78491-425-7 (Paperback £35.00), 344 pp, 210 figures, 248 plates....

The current status of research on colonization and early migration in the insular part of the Russian Far East is presented. Based on a critical evaluation of the latest data, it is concluded that the initial colonization of Sakhalin Island occurred at ca. 19,500 BP and possibly earlier, but no solid evidence has yet been found to determine this with more precision. The movement of people from neighboring Hokkaido (northern Japan) to Sakhalin continued throughout the Paleolithic–Neolithic since ca. 10,000 BP with the help of maritime transport. In the Middle–Late Neolithic, ca. 5200–4400 BP, migration from the adjacent mainland (via the lower reaches of the Amur River) to Sakhalin is detected. The southern part of the Kurile Archipelago was initially colonized from Hokkaido in the Early Jomon (i.e., Neolithic) at ca. 7200–7000 BP; the northern part was subsequently settled possibly as early as ca. 5300 BP. Active contacts between Hokkaido and the Kurile Islands continued throughout and after the J...

The Ekven Settlement: Eskimo Beginnings on the Asian Shore of Bering Strait. Edited by Yvon Csonka. BAR International Series 2624, Archaeopress, Oxford. 2014. ISBN 978-1-4073-1259-0 (Paperback £30....

A critical evaluation of the existing data corpus on the earliest pottery in East Asia and its chronology as of early 2013 is presented here. Pottery in the Old World emerged in three regions within greater East Asia, namely South China, the Japanese Islands and the Russian Far East, at c. 14,800–13,300 bp (or c. 18,500–15,500 cal. bp). Most probably, pottery-making appeared in these places independently; no solid evidence exists about migrations and/or diffusion of this technology from a supposed single centre in South China. Because the Upper Palaeolithic humans in Eurasia were familiar with clay (as a raw material for making figurines), the most probable driving force for the origin of pottery was the necessity to produce in large amounts durable, light containers for the processing (including boiling) and storing of food.

In this article we present a review of the archaeology and chronology of the Neolithic (i.e., pottery-bearing) cultural complexes of the Kurile Islands. Previous studies revealed only general patterns of Neolithic pottery and lithic typologies in the archipelago within a tentative chronological framework. However, recent research has now firmly established an occupation of the southern part of the Kurile Islands dating to as early as ca. 7000 BP. Based on preliminary investigations it appears that major economic activities focused on hunting, fishing (with possible exploitation of coastal fishes), and the gathering of plants. Interestingly, there is as of yet no solid evidence for the widespread use of marine resources (shellfish and mammals) in the Kuriles during the Neolithic, though this issue requires further research due to a dearth of properly excavated sites. Several potentially important sites are also suggested for continuing investigation of Neolithic archaeology in the Kurile Islands w...

The Russian Far East has always been considered one of the possible routes for Upper Paleolithic humans to migrate from North and East Asia to North America (e.g., Erlandson et al. 2007). Although ...

Obsidian exchange patterns were studied on Sakhalin Island which connects Japan with mainland Asia. One hundred-eighty-two specimens of obsidian, including 157 artifacts from 75 sites on Sakhalin, ranging in age from the early Upper Paleolithic (ca. 19,400-17,800 RYBP) to the Okhotsk cultural complex (ca. 1400-800 RYBP), and 25 geological samples from Hokkaido Island (Japan), were examined by neutron activation analysis. Geochemical data suggest that all the obsidian artifacts from known sources found in Sakhalin archaeological sites were brought from Hokkaido sources. Widespread use of Hokkaido obsidian by Sakhalin inhabitants shows that long-distance contacts and exchange have taken place in Northeast Asia since at least the Upper Paleolithic. Although this obsidian transport could have been land-based during the Pleistocene, people had to use watercraft to cross La Perouse Strait during the past 10,000 years. The distance of raw material transport was about 250-300 km in the early Upper Paleol...

Here, we report new radiocarbon dates and palaeodietary data ( i 13 C and i 15 N measurements) from human bone collagen of two Early Neolithic populations in Primorye (Maritime) Province, in the Russian Far East. We found that the coastal people of the Boisman 2 site ( n =10) had isotope values consistent with a diet of (likely hunted) sea mammals, while the inland population of the Chertovy Vorota site ( n =2) had isotope values consistent with a diet that was a mixture of both terrestrial and marine (mostly fish) food resources. Our results suggest that advanced sea mammal hunting already existed in Primorye at ca. 5800 BP (ca. 6600 cal years BP). Marine reservoir corrections were required for the radiocarbon dates on the human remains, due to the consumption of "old" marine-based carbon.

Thisvolumeisdevoted to theprehistoric archaeology of Sakhalin, the largest island in the Russian Far East, and is the most comprehensive treatment of the subject to date. The book consists of six chapters, a conclusion, four supplements, tables, illustrations, and references. The main topics are: the history of archaeological research (chapter 1); climateandenvironmentof thePleistoceneand Holocene (chapter 2); the Lower Paleolithic (chapter 3); the Upper Paleolithic (chapter 4); the Paleolithic–Neolithic transition, Initial and Early Neolithic (chapter 5); and the Middle and Late Neolithic (chapter 6). For non-Russianreaders,papers inEnglishwould serve as additional resources (Vasilevsky 2003; Vasilevsky et al. 2010; see also Nelson et al. 2006:75–100, 151–166). A. A. Vasilevsky [Vasilevski in some sources] presents original data along with concepts of the Paleolithic and Neolithic archaeology, chronology, and subsistence