Brief History of the North-West Okhotsk Sea Coast Archaeological Research (In Celebration of the 90th Anniversary of the First Northern Okhotsk Sea Coast Archaeology Publication by V. I. Ogorodnikov)

Purpose. To analyze the significance of V. Ogorodnikov’s 1929 article on finds from Olsky (Zaviyalova) Island in the historiography of archaeological research in northeastern Russia. Results. An analysis of his published materials, in the context of the history of archaeological research in Northeast Asia in the 18th – first quarter of the 20th century shows that this was, in fact, the first professional publication on archaeological research in this part of northeast Asia. Until that time, sporadic publications about random finds and their fragmentary descriptions did not give a holistic picture of human existence in these territories. It was also the first Russian archaeological publication post-revolution on the antiquities of the north of the Far East. However, Ogorodnikov’s article, from the day of its publication, was forgotten, and in all further archaeological research, both in Northeast Asia as a whole, and on Zaviyalova Island and in Taui Bay in particular, was not mentioned and was not analyzed by the archaeologists who conducted research there, although the conclusions made by him were confirmed by further work. This, apparently, was due to the fact that although he was a well-known Siberian historian and the first Dean of the Department of History of Irkutsk University, Ogorodnikov was unjustly repressed for political reasons in 1933 and died in 1938 in a Gulag camp. Despite the fact that he was politically rehabilitated in 1957, his name has not yet returned to the historiography of archeology of Northeast Asia. This publication aims to fill this gap. The Neolithic age of the archaeological materials declared and published by Ogorodnikov, previously unforeseen and not justified by anyone for Northeast Asia, was fully confirmed by further research. Conclusion. The publication by Ogorodnikov in 1929 featuring results of the first excavations in Taui Bay on Olsky (Zaviyalova) Island is a significant milestone in archaeological research in the North-East of Russia.