The culture history of the Kuril Islands is directly linked to the histories of the surrounding areas, most notably Japan. The Jomon period, which lasted between 13,000 and 2,900 years BP in Japan, marks the first human arrivals to the Kuril Islands. Jomon groups have generally been characterized as fully sedentary hunter-gatherer-fishers. Cord-marked pottery, microblades, and large biface stone tools are characteristic material remains of Jomon people.

The earliest date for human occupation in the Kuril Islands comes from a radiocarbon date from the Yankito site on Iturup Island, which dates to 7,055 years BP. This date coincides with the Early Jomon period (7,300 – 5,500 BP). There is archaeological evidence of wide spread fishing during this period in the southern islands through the presence of net weights and fish hooks. Human occupation of the central and northern Kuril Islands is dated between 4,000 and 3,200 BP in the Middle to Late Jomon era.

Developing out of the Jomon cultural period, the Epi-Jomon culture began around 2,900 BP. Specialized maritime fishing and hunting techniques, including the use of composite fish hooks, aided these Kuril Island inhabitants in establishing more substantial settlements on the more remote and isolated central islands.

A new group of people, the Okhotsk culture, appeared around 1,500 BP that was highly adapted to maritime environments. Their tool kit included barbed harpoons, net sinkers, needles, and composite fish hooks. In addition, Okhotsk people possessed stone pendants and zoomorphic figures. They lived throughout the Kurils until about AD 1300, when they mysteriously disappeared from the islands. The last indigenous cultural group to inhabit that Kuril Islands were the Ainu. The Ainu may have settled in the Kuril Islands shortly after the Okhotsk people left, though recent research suggests a gap of a couple hundred years with Ainu moving through the islands in significant numbers only after about AD 1500. Although the origin of the Ainu people is not well understood, DNA evidence shows a distant genetic relationship between them and the Okhotsk that could indicate some amount of assimilation between Epi-Jomon descendants and Okhotsk people in Hokkaido and/or the Kurils giving rise to the populations today identified as Ainu.

click on the red dots to explore the occupation through time