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Thousands of years ago during the Stone Age first people came to Chukotka. They were primitive hunters from Southern parts of Central and East Asia.
At that time the tundra valleys of North-East Asia and Alaska were connected by a natural land bridge and formed one region called Beringiya covered with woods where herds of mammoths, wooly rhinoceros, bisons and deer were grazing.
Unlike the mysterious and mythic Atlantida, Beringiya that went underwater about 10 thousand years ago is a historic reality. This was happening gradually: As enormous ice masses of the last Great Glacial Epoch were melting, the ocean level rose by 150 meters, so the vast territories between the Chukotka peninsula and Alaska were flooded. Since then that territory has been covered with the waters of the Bering and the Chukchi seas.
Today many archaeologists are interested in Beringiya, primarily because of the problem of the initial colonization of American Continent: On the sea bottom they are intending to find traces of the earliest Stone Age explorers as they traveled from Asia to America. Meanwhile, scientists already have enough evidence that the once unsettled American Continent was colonized through the Bering Bridge, from the Chukotka peninsula to Alaska. Indians’ forefathers, Eskimos, Aleuts and then the Chukchi left much historical memorials of its original history.
About 10 thousand years ago the valleys and plateaus of the Chukotka area, North America and Beringiya were free of ice, and Beringiya was slowly sinking. Ocean waves were covering its vast territory. As a result of the movement of the Earth’s crust, two oceans — Arctic and Pacific — finished formation of the Bering Strait, and two continents — Eurasia and America — became devided.
The climate was getting warmer and warmer. Mammoths and other large animals of the glacial epoch, except for deer, died out. Life of people in the region was changing: they had to switch from hunting mammoths to hunting deer, fishing and later — to sea hunting. This was a transfer from the ancient Stone Age, Paleolithic period, to the late Stone Age — Neolithic period.
Dozens of ancient camps that were found by archeologists and which preserved silicon arrow- and spear-heads, knives and scrapers with a two-side treatment and retouching. The earliest among these camps are Ananaiveem (about 8400 years ago) situated on the river that bears the same name, and Koolen IV (about 6 thousand years ago) on Lake Koolen not far from the Uelen settlement. Camps of later periods were found in great quantities on the banks of mountain, short but deep rivers of the Chukotka peninsula.
Judging by archeological discoveries, ancient dwellers of continental Chukotka did not travel much because of the lack of transport means and the impossibility to replace their house with a warmer one in the cold conditions of the tundra. Sledges, draught deer and dogs appeared in Chukotka comparatively recently, and if hunting or fishing grounds were suddenly exhausted sometimes whole tribes died out as it happened with Yukagirs on the Omolon river when deer suddenly changed their usual migration ways.
Sea-animal hunting in Chukotka goes back to the time when the Ice Age came to an end and all mammoths had died out. People who found themselves in very severe conditions had to adapt themselves to the new environment.
Excavations of ancient settlements and tombs come to show that the life of people living on the coast of the Bering Strait was mostly connected with developed sea-hunting since 10 century B.C. The main peculiarity of the Arctic culture of sea-hunters was their adaptation to sea: Buttoned-up, wittily cut waterproof fur clothes, houses built half underground of whale bones and heated with fat-lamps, curtains made of deer fur, inconsumable fast kayaks and large but light canoe made of walrus skin, turning harpoons with coming-off heads and many other clever items made of stone or bones.
When people became good at hunting for walrus, seal, whale, deer, white bear or any other animal or bird, they not only managed to survive but even learned to live comfortably and happily where the natives of the middle latitudes can hardly live and that only because of the powerful machinery available nowadays and using the abundant experience of Northern aborigens.
In 1975 Soviet scientists arranged the first archeological expedition to Vrangel Island, a pience of land left from the ancient Beringiya. The remains of an ancient culture that they found there and that was connected with sea hunting had much in common with ancient Paleo-Eskimos cultures of the Arctic America. Having studied the coals of an ancient fire the scientists were able to say how old the discovered sea culture was. They dated it as of II thousand years B.C. That was the oldest Paleo-Eskimos culture.
Thus, they discovered "another page" of mysterious history of the natives of the Extreme North. Back in the days when neither Rome nor Athens existed in Europe, the Chukotka region, although being one of the most severe parts of the world, was already colonized. Sea-hunters even lived on Vrangel Island; they did not live there in isolation but interacted with all distant lands, possibly, even with Greenland.
A magnificent historic monument of the ancient culture of Chukotka of the late Neolithic Period are pegtymel rock drawings — petrogliphs (dating back to 1000 years B.C.). They were engraved in the rocks of the right bank of Pegtymel River on quite a long Kaikuulsky steep which extends for almost 500 meters (half a mile). Altogether there are 104 silhouette paining groups on 12 rocks.
The most frequent is a typical hunting subjecmattert: A hunter, sitting in a small boat, strikes a huge wild deer with a spear or a harpoon. An artist depicted quite a real situation, the desired prey — a deer — was shown huge, fat and quite real-looking but the boat with a hunter in it were shown inadequately tiny. The hunter was engraved by just one stroke.
Certain petrogliphs depict various ways of hunting for deer: in spring — on skies and using dogs, and in autumn — using a river boat. Many petrogliphs depict large boats with a large number of oarsmen. Their main purpose was to detain deer not allowing them to swim away down the river. But the most important role in deer hunting was played by small brisk boats with a double paddle, kayaks —waterproof boats, upholstered with leather on all sides and a special man-hole for the rover.
In the scenes of hunting whales, sea-otters, some other sea animals and large boats are depicted with high sharp fronts and a large number of rovers. Thus, rock paintings give absolutely definite information about the earliest means of water transport used by Chukotka hunters.
Among petrogliphs of Pegtymel there are pictures of mysterious character, dancing figures surrounded by huge mushrooms. The monstrous mushrooms are, most probably, fly-agarics and they have their own meaning. It is not uncommon to find red fly-agarics in the Arctic; they easily survive in such conditions. Fly-agarics were known as an intoxicant drug and this is proved by ethnographic data. (it is interesting that the same man-like hallucinogenic mushrooms can also be found among Maya stone sculptures).Usually the «fusion» of a mushroom and a man into one figure is explained by anthropomorphisation of animals or plants usually characteristic of a certain stage of development of all completely different tribes and nations. But the dancing figures of men-flyagarics could also be a good evidence of rather deep roots of shamanism in the Far North-East of Siberia. It is well known that in the primitive society intoxicated people were thought to be prophets. When he chewed on a flyagaric, a man turned into a lunatic and experienced hallucinations — a state close to a shamans ecstasy which he usually achieves through frantic dancing and a wearisome beating of tambourine.
The art of the ancient Chukotka painters filled with animation and vigilant perception as well as the highly-developed stone-working technique speak for rather high standards of culture, at least for the Stone Age period. However, the Bronze Age never began here in full. Only single bronze items appeared here from the South, but then all communication with people who had turned themselves to cattle-breeding and husbandry ceased and the Chukotka region fully came back to the Stone Age. At that time in Siberia the Iron Age was already coming on.
After that a significant lagging in development production forces and production relations began in Chukotka.
Iron first appeared in Chukotka at the beginning of Anno Domini, but it was used in very small quantities. Late Stone Age had protracted phase character—up until the arrival of Russian explorers in the 17th century.
As time went by several ethno-cultural communities with very peculiar historical monuments were formed here. Along the coast line lived the forefathers of Eskimos and Coastal Chukchi. They lived permanently in the settlements and hunted for sea-animals.
Cross-continental areas and areas along the rivers Anadyr, Main and up to the Kama were inhabited by Yukagirs, and the coastal areas in the South-East of the Chukotka region were represented by the ancient Koryak and ancient Kerek cultures. Mainland areas of the Chukotka region were also inhabited by deer hunters — forefathers of Chukchi deer-breeders. A transfer to nomadic deer-raising marked the beginning of a new period of the primitive communal system.
It is believed, that the ancient Eskimos’ culture went through several stages of development: Okviksky, Ancient Berigomorsky and Birniksky, named after locations of historic monuments most typical for such stages. (Each of these cultures is identified mainly according to the forms of bone harpoon heads, main hunting instrument and according to the style of artistic carving performed on bone items.)
Gradually, Okviksky, ancient Berigomorsky and Birniksky cultures developed into Punkunsky culture. This happened in approx.VI-VIII centuries. Judging by the latest paleogeographic research, the climate of the seas of theArctic Ocean got warmer again in VIII-XII centuries. There were an abundant number of seals, whales and other sea animals along the ocean shore line that was no longer covered with solid ice.
During Punuksky period hunting was really booming on the Arctic shore of Chukotka, flourishing like during no other period before. Wide use of whale bones as building and handicrafts material proves this. Whale skulls, ribs and lower jaws were used to construct large earth-houses, long whale bones — to erect high drying structures to keep canoes, meet and fish. Settlements grew in size, population grew as well: Abundant prey made it unnecessary to move to other places.
The end of Punuksky period coincided with gradual fall in the temperature, the start of the so-called Minor Ice Age. In 1000-1100 A.D. the Punuksky culture was becoming a part of a cultural-historical community, the Tule (Greenland-Canadian Neo-Eskimos culture).
Transfer from hunting ashore and fishing to sea-hunting was the first significant improvement in the development of productive forces of ancient inhabitants of the Chukotka seashore. The second, even more significant and progressive improvement took place in tundra: Deer-hunters began to domesticate deer. Nomadic deer-raising appeared which was more economically beneficial than any hunting. Life that deer-breeders led was enormously difficult, but until recently it was the only possible way to colonize the vast deer moss pastures of the North-East.
The origin of deer-raising in Chukotka has not been fully studied; there still are lots of contradictory hypotheses. One fact is known for sure: deer-raising appeared here later than sea-hunting, only a few centuries ago.
Nomad deer-raising development was making the primitive-commune system that had existed in the Chukotka region for thousands of years unsteady. The matriarchal tribal organization that had been common for all hunting peoples in the Chukotka region gave place to patriarchal system of tribal organization. Private property appeared together with the embryo of the military democracy that is evidenced by many archeological finds: fortified settlements built on forbidding rocks, battle-sites where even now one may find the remains of bone-armor, arrow-heads and other weapons.
The time of intertribal wars on the Chukotka territory began at the end of XVII and ended at the beginning of XVIII century. and was partially connected with the arrival of Russian explorers to the region.
As Russian industrialists and explorers first came to the Far North-East of Asia, they found out that all Chukotka inhabitants could be divided in two groups according to their economical and everyday way of life. One group was attached to sea — settled sea-hunters: Eskimos, settled Chukchi, Koryaks and Kereks. The other group lead nomadic way of life deep in the tundra and forest-tundra areas of the mainland part of the Chukotka region: the deer-herding Chukchi and Yukagirs.
Seizure of deer herds along with peaceful nomad deer-raising were also among their activities. Often people from defeated tribes were turned into slaves. Wars between the Chukchi and the Koryaks were especially fierce. Being more numerous than other tribes, the Chukchi left those areas which were "affected" by the Russian explorers and pressed Koryaks, Kereks and Yukagirs who had nothing left to do but seek for Russian help.
When the Russians came Chukotka, the eternal isolation of these Stone-Age representatives was over, but this also meant new problems.
At that time the tundra valleys of North-East Asia and Alaska were connected by a natural land bridge and formed one region called Beringiya covered with woods where herds of mammoths, wooly rhinoceros, bisons and deer were grazing.
Unlike the mysterious and mythic Atlantida, Beringiya that went underwater about 10 thousand years ago is a historic reality. This was happening gradually: As enormous ice masses of the last Great Glacial Epoch were melting, the ocean level rose by 150 meters, so the vast territories between the Chukotka peninsula and Alaska were flooded. Since then that territory has been covered with the waters of the Bering and the Chukchi seas.
Today many archaeologists are interested in Beringiya, primarily because of the problem of the initial colonization of American Continent: On the sea bottom they are intending to find traces of the earliest Stone Age explorers as they traveled from Asia to America. Meanwhile, scientists already have enough evidence that the once unsettled American Continent was colonized through the Bering Bridge, from the Chukotka peninsula to Alaska. Indians’ forefathers, Eskimos, Aleuts and then the Chukchi left much historical memorials of its original history.
Earliest Monuments
About 10 thousand years ago the valleys and plateaus of the Chukotka area, North America and Beringiya were free of ice, and Beringiya was slowly sinking. Ocean waves were covering its vast territory. As a result of the movement of the Earth’s crust, two oceans — Arctic and Pacific — finished formation of the Bering Strait, and two continents — Eurasia and America — became devided.
The climate was getting warmer and warmer. Mammoths and other large animals of the glacial epoch, except for deer, died out. Life of people in the region was changing: they had to switch from hunting mammoths to hunting deer, fishing and later — to sea hunting. This was a transfer from the ancient Stone Age, Paleolithic period, to the late Stone Age — Neolithic period.
Dozens of ancient camps that were found by archeologists and which preserved silicon arrow- and spear-heads, knives and scrapers with a two-side treatment and retouching. The earliest among these camps are Ananaiveem (about 8400 years ago) situated on the river that bears the same name, and Koolen IV (about 6 thousand years ago) on Lake Koolen not far from the Uelen settlement. Camps of later periods were found in great quantities on the banks of mountain, short but deep rivers of the Chukotka peninsula.
Judging by archeological discoveries, ancient dwellers of continental Chukotka did not travel much because of the lack of transport means and the impossibility to replace their house with a warmer one in the cold conditions of the tundra. Sledges, draught deer and dogs appeared in Chukotka comparatively recently, and if hunting or fishing grounds were suddenly exhausted sometimes whole tribes died out as it happened with Yukagirs on the Omolon river when deer suddenly changed their usual migration ways.
Life by the side of the ice edge
Sea-animal hunting in Chukotka goes back to the time when the Ice Age came to an end and all mammoths had died out. People who found themselves in very severe conditions had to adapt themselves to the new environment.
Excavations of ancient settlements and tombs come to show that the life of people living on the coast of the Bering Strait was mostly connected with developed sea-hunting since 10 century B.C. The main peculiarity of the Arctic culture of sea-hunters was their adaptation to sea: Buttoned-up, wittily cut waterproof fur clothes, houses built half underground of whale bones and heated with fat-lamps, curtains made of deer fur, inconsumable fast kayaks and large but light canoe made of walrus skin, turning harpoons with coming-off heads and many other clever items made of stone or bones.
When people became good at hunting for walrus, seal, whale, deer, white bear or any other animal or bird, they not only managed to survive but even learned to live comfortably and happily where the natives of the middle latitudes can hardly live and that only because of the powerful machinery available nowadays and using the abundant experience of Northern aborigens.
In 1975 Soviet scientists arranged the first archeological expedition to Vrangel Island, a pience of land left from the ancient Beringiya. The remains of an ancient culture that they found there and that was connected with sea hunting had much in common with ancient Paleo-Eskimos cultures of the Arctic America. Having studied the coals of an ancient fire the scientists were able to say how old the discovered sea culture was. They dated it as of II thousand years B.C. That was the oldest Paleo-Eskimos culture.
Thus, they discovered "another page" of mysterious history of the natives of the Extreme North. Back in the days when neither Rome nor Athens existed in Europe, the Chukotka region, although being one of the most severe parts of the world, was already colonized. Sea-hunters even lived on Vrangel Island; they did not live there in isolation but interacted with all distant lands, possibly, even with Greenland.
Life of Chukotka Hunters in Rock Paintings
A magnificent historic monument of the ancient culture of Chukotka of the late Neolithic Period are pegtymel rock drawings — petrogliphs (dating back to 1000 years B.C.). They were engraved in the rocks of the right bank of Pegtymel River on quite a long Kaikuulsky steep which extends for almost 500 meters (half a mile). Altogether there are 104 silhouette paining groups on 12 rocks.
The most frequent is a typical hunting subjecmattert: A hunter, sitting in a small boat, strikes a huge wild deer with a spear or a harpoon. An artist depicted quite a real situation, the desired prey — a deer — was shown huge, fat and quite real-looking but the boat with a hunter in it were shown inadequately tiny. The hunter was engraved by just one stroke.
Certain petrogliphs depict various ways of hunting for deer: in spring — on skies and using dogs, and in autumn — using a river boat. Many petrogliphs depict large boats with a large number of oarsmen. Their main purpose was to detain deer not allowing them to swim away down the river. But the most important role in deer hunting was played by small brisk boats with a double paddle, kayaks —waterproof boats, upholstered with leather on all sides and a special man-hole for the rover.
In the scenes of hunting whales, sea-otters, some other sea animals and large boats are depicted with high sharp fronts and a large number of rovers. Thus, rock paintings give absolutely definite information about the earliest means of water transport used by Chukotka hunters.
Among petrogliphs of Pegtymel there are pictures of mysterious character, dancing figures surrounded by huge mushrooms. The monstrous mushrooms are, most probably, fly-agarics and they have their own meaning. It is not uncommon to find red fly-agarics in the Arctic; they easily survive in such conditions. Fly-agarics were known as an intoxicant drug and this is proved by ethnographic data. (it is interesting that the same man-like hallucinogenic mushrooms can also be found among Maya stone sculptures).Usually the «fusion» of a mushroom and a man into one figure is explained by anthropomorphisation of animals or plants usually characteristic of a certain stage of development of all completely different tribes and nations. But the dancing figures of men-flyagarics could also be a good evidence of rather deep roots of shamanism in the Far North-East of Siberia. It is well known that in the primitive society intoxicated people were thought to be prophets. When he chewed on a flyagaric, a man turned into a lunatic and experienced hallucinations — a state close to a shamans ecstasy which he usually achieves through frantic dancing and a wearisome beating of tambourine.
The art of the ancient Chukotka painters filled with animation and vigilant perception as well as the highly-developed stone-working technique speak for rather high standards of culture, at least for the Stone Age period. However, the Bronze Age never began here in full. Only single bronze items appeared here from the South, but then all communication with people who had turned themselves to cattle-breeding and husbandry ceased and the Chukotka region fully came back to the Stone Age. At that time in Siberia the Iron Age was already coming on.
After that a significant lagging in development production forces and production relations began in Chukotka.
The Stone Age Reserve
Iron first appeared in Chukotka at the beginning of Anno Domini, but it was used in very small quantities. Late Stone Age had protracted phase character—up until the arrival of Russian explorers in the 17th century.
As time went by several ethno-cultural communities with very peculiar historical monuments were formed here. Along the coast line lived the forefathers of Eskimos and Coastal Chukchi. They lived permanently in the settlements and hunted for sea-animals.
Cross-continental areas and areas along the rivers Anadyr, Main and up to the Kama were inhabited by Yukagirs, and the coastal areas in the South-East of the Chukotka region were represented by the ancient Koryak and ancient Kerek cultures. Mainland areas of the Chukotka region were also inhabited by deer hunters — forefathers of Chukchi deer-breeders. A transfer to nomadic deer-raising marked the beginning of a new period of the primitive communal system.
It is believed, that the ancient Eskimos’ culture went through several stages of development: Okviksky, Ancient Berigomorsky and Birniksky, named after locations of historic monuments most typical for such stages. (Each of these cultures is identified mainly according to the forms of bone harpoon heads, main hunting instrument and according to the style of artistic carving performed on bone items.)
Gradually, Okviksky, ancient Berigomorsky and Birniksky cultures developed into Punkunsky culture. This happened in approx.VI-VIII centuries. Judging by the latest paleogeographic research, the climate of the seas of theArctic Ocean got warmer again in VIII-XII centuries. There were an abundant number of seals, whales and other sea animals along the ocean shore line that was no longer covered with solid ice.
During Punuksky period hunting was really booming on the Arctic shore of Chukotka, flourishing like during no other period before. Wide use of whale bones as building and handicrafts material proves this. Whale skulls, ribs and lower jaws were used to construct large earth-houses, long whale bones — to erect high drying structures to keep canoes, meet and fish. Settlements grew in size, population grew as well: Abundant prey made it unnecessary to move to other places.
The end of Punuksky period coincided with gradual fall in the temperature, the start of the so-called Minor Ice Age. In 1000-1100 A.D. the Punuksky culture was becoming a part of a cultural-historical community, the Tule (Greenland-Canadian Neo-Eskimos culture).
Expansion of Deer-breeding and Disintegration of a Primitive Communal System
Transfer from hunting ashore and fishing to sea-hunting was the first significant improvement in the development of productive forces of ancient inhabitants of the Chukotka seashore. The second, even more significant and progressive improvement took place in tundra: Deer-hunters began to domesticate deer. Nomadic deer-raising appeared which was more economically beneficial than any hunting. Life that deer-breeders led was enormously difficult, but until recently it was the only possible way to colonize the vast deer moss pastures of the North-East.
The origin of deer-raising in Chukotka has not been fully studied; there still are lots of contradictory hypotheses. One fact is known for sure: deer-raising appeared here later than sea-hunting, only a few centuries ago.
Nomad deer-raising development was making the primitive-commune system that had existed in the Chukotka region for thousands of years unsteady. The matriarchal tribal organization that had been common for all hunting peoples in the Chukotka region gave place to patriarchal system of tribal organization. Private property appeared together with the embryo of the military democracy that is evidenced by many archeological finds: fortified settlements built on forbidding rocks, battle-sites where even now one may find the remains of bone-armor, arrow-heads and other weapons.
The time of intertribal wars on the Chukotka territory began at the end of XVII and ended at the beginning of XVIII century. and was partially connected with the arrival of Russian explorers to the region.
As Russian industrialists and explorers first came to the Far North-East of Asia, they found out that all Chukotka inhabitants could be divided in two groups according to their economical and everyday way of life. One group was attached to sea — settled sea-hunters: Eskimos, settled Chukchi, Koryaks and Kereks. The other group lead nomadic way of life deep in the tundra and forest-tundra areas of the mainland part of the Chukotka region: the deer-herding Chukchi and Yukagirs.
Seizure of deer herds along with peaceful nomad deer-raising were also among their activities. Often people from defeated tribes were turned into slaves. Wars between the Chukchi and the Koryaks were especially fierce. Being more numerous than other tribes, the Chukchi left those areas which were "affected" by the Russian explorers and pressed Koryaks, Kereks and Yukagirs who had nothing left to do but seek for Russian help.
When the Russians came Chukotka, the eternal isolation of these Stone-Age representatives was over, but this also meant new problems.
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