The Okhotsk culture is an archaeological coastal fishing and hunter-gatherer culture that developed around the southern coastal regions of the Sea of Okhotsk, including Sakhalin, northeastern Hokkaido, and the Kuril Islands during the last half of the first millennium to the early part of the second. The Okhotsk are often associated to be the ancestors of the Nivkhs,[8] while others argue them to be identified with early Ainu-speakers.[9] It is suggested that the bear cult, a practice shared by various Northern Eurasian peoples, the Ainu and the Nivkhs, was an important element of the Okhotsk culture but was uncommon in Jomon period Japan.[10] Archaeological evidence indicates that the Okhotsk culture proper originated in the 5th century AD from the Susuya culture of southern Sakhalin and northwestern Hokkaido.[11]
Negidals are considered to descend from Evenks that settled in the Amgun basin during the Iron Age. After branching off from the main Tungusic ethnic family and reaching the Okhotsk Coast, Negidals became geographically isolated.[12]
The first information for Europeans about the Sea of Okhotsk was delivered by the expedition led by Vassili Poyarkov, who came to the Okhotsk coast in 1639 by the mouth of Ulya river. Six years later, in 1645, an expedition led by Ivan Moskvitin travelled by the Amur River down to its mouth.[3] In 1647 an expedition led by Semyon Shelkovnokov (Семен Шелковников, Семейка Шелковник) traveled from Yakutsk to the mouth of Ulya and further to the mouth of Okhota River, where he built a fortified winter quarters (zimovye) in defense from the militant local population, in which place the modern Okhotsk was built.[13]
^Trekhsviatskyi, Anatolii (2007). "At the far edge of the Chinese Oikoumene: mutual relations of the indigenous population of Sakhalin with the Yuan and Ming dynasties". Journal of Asian History. 41 (2): 134–135. JSTOR41933457.
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