Field research at the Olskaya site (Northern Sea of Okhotsk region) in 2022

In the field season of2022, archaeological research at the Olskaya site - one of the key sites of the Tokarev culture in the Northern Sea of Okhotsk region - was continued. Two sections with the total area of 24 m2 were added to the excavation area of the previous years, yielding a collection of stone and bone artifacts which enriches our knowledge on the material complex of the settlement. The assemblage of the Tokarev tools made of mineral raw materials, which were obtained in 2022, includes tools for hunting and processing meat, leather, bone, and wood, such as spearheads and arrowheads, knives, scrapers, adzes, chisels, etc. Bone toolkit discovered in new field season was represented by harpoon heads, spearheads, dart heads, and arrowheads, needles and needle cases, piercing tools, polishers, adzes, hoes, etc. The collection of decorated bone objects and adornments was expanded; first definitive evidence on production of wooden artifacts by the carriers of the Tokarev culture was obtained. A unique find from the 2022 field season was a human lower jaw. Fieldworks in the upper part of the cultural layer at the Olskaya settlement resulted in some finds of the Old Koryak culture, such as adze and hoe made of whale bone, serrated harpoon head, trihedral arrowhead, and spearhead with the flattened base, bow endplate, comb, fragments of personal adornments, etc. The data obtained has made it possible to significantly expand the ideas about the culture of the first coastal inhabitants of the Northern Okhotsk region at the end of the Holocene.