Obsidian in prehistoric complexes of the southern Kurile islands (the Russian Far East): A review of sources, their exploitation, and population movements

Abstract

Obsidian provenance studies in the southern Kuriles (Kunashir and Iturup islands), part of the insular Russian Far East, are reviewed and summarized for the first time. The sites analyzed belong to the Jomon (ca. 7300–2500 BP), Epi-Jomon (ca. 2500–1400 BP), and Okhotsk (ca. 1400–800 BP) cultural complexes, with particular attention given to the well-studied Yankito 2 site. The main sources of high-quality volcanic glass for the southern Kuriles were on the neighboring Hokkaido Island—Oketo and Shirataki (ca. 140–390 km away). The presence of obsidian at an Epi-Jomon site on southern Kunashir Island originating from remote sources on the Kamchatka Peninsula ca. 1290–1440 km away is an important contribution to understanding the prehistoric contacts and population dispersals that occurred within insular Northeast Asia. This is also supported by paleoanthropological and DNA data from Epi-Jomon human remains on Iturup, showing similarities with native Kamchatkan populations. The use of boats in the southern Kuriles is evident from the beginning of colonization, ca. 7300–7100 BP given that islands were not connected after the Early Holocene due to sea level rise. It is clear that seafaring was an important part of human activities throughout the entire island chain since the Epi-Jomon, ca. 2500 BP. Because the Kurile Islands were one of the most probable migration routes between Northeast Asia (i.e., Japan) and Northeastern Siberia and North America, study of the human colonization of the Kuriles has wider implication for the northeastern part of Eurasia as a gateway to the Americas.

Keywords:

• Obsidian provenance
• migrations
• seafaring
• Northeast Asia

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr. Michael D. Glascock (MURR) for analysis of the Yankito 2 specimen. Dr. Olga A. Shubina (Sakhalin Regional Museum) kindly provided access to archaeological collections and archival data related to sites used in this study, which we are thankful for. Finally, we are grateful to three anonymous reviewers for useful comments and suggestions that definitely improved the quality of this manuscript. We appreciate the help of co-editor Scott M. Fitzpatrick for his careful copyediting of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the State Assignment of the Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, with funding provided by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.