Okhotsk culture

Okhotsk culture
The Moyoro Shell Midden at Abashiri, Hokkaidō, the ruins of the Okhotsk culture

The Okhotsk culture is an archeological coastal fishing and hunter-gatherer culture of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk (600–1000 CE in Hokkaido, –1500 or 1600 CE in the Kurils): the Amur River basin, Sakhalin, northern Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands, and Kamchatka. It appears to have spread outwards from the Amur River region, only to be partially absorbed or pushed back by the Satsumon culture spreading north from Japan, but surviving for example in the Nivkh of Sakhalin and the Amur and in Itelmen of Kamchatka. The historically attested Ainu people appear to retain a strong element of the Okhotsk; while Satsumon culture (and perhaps language) appears to have dominated among the mix of people who would later be known as the Ainu, fundamental Okhotsk elements remained, such as the bear cult.

Kisao Ishizuki of the Sapporo University claimed that the people of the Okhotsk culture was recorded under the name Mishihase on the Japanese record Nihon Shoki.[1]

References

  1. ^ "第4回 北海道と胆振地方の古代史" (in Japanese). Tomakomai Komazawa University. http://www.t-komazawa.ac.jp/column/net/backnumber/04/index.html. Retrieved February 22, 2011.