Environment and prehistoric humans in the Russian Far East and neighbouring East Asia: Main patterns of interaction

Abstract

The human–environment interaction in the southern part of the Russian Far East is considered, based on current archaeological, chronological, palaeoenvironmental, zooarchaeological, and archaeobotanical data. The major branches of the economy and its dynamics throughout the final Late Pleistocene and the Holocene are reconstructed on the basis of primary indicators (animal and plant remains from cultural complexes). The main stages in the process of human–environment interaction are distinguished, with principal boundaries at ca. 4500 BP (appearance of hoed agriculture), ca. 3000 BP (beginning of animal breeding), and ca. 1500 BP (emergence of plough agriculture and intensive cattle breeding). In some regions, such as Sakhalin Island and the Kurile Islands, communities of hunter-fisher-gatherers continued to exist for a long time, up to the 17–18th centuries AD. The relationship between cultural (maritime adaptation and agriculture) and natural (climatic coolings and warmings, and sea level changes) processes was not direct, and the palaeoeconomy in the Russian Far East was not environmental-driven; migrations and exchange played a certain role in the introduction of productive economy. The history of human–environment interaction in the region under study is closely related to more general features of this process in greater East Asia.