Pottery Making of Sakhalin Island in Historical Dynamics: From the Neolithic to the Paleometal Period

Abstract

This paper examines the correlation between pottery-making dynamics and cultural-historical processes on Sakhalin Island, focusing on the period of transition from the Neolithic to the Paleo-metal period. Utilizing assemblages from sites of the Susuya culture and Okhotsk cultures, change can be observed in three main categories: those caused by cultural or ethnocultural interaction and evolving processes; those caused by economic innovations; and developments due to technological innovations. Evidence of these developments can be seen in the complicated progressive change in prehistoric technologies during the mid-first century to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries A.D. The bearers of the Okhotsk culture replaced Neolithic traditions entirely, adopting a new ornamental style.