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A new culture from the Amur River Valley entered Sakhalin Island from the north and migrated south, finally settling near the Sea of Okhotsk. This culture was aptly named "Okhotsk" culture by archaeologists. These people brought with them their practices from the Asian mainland, such as pig farming, and used them in conjunction with the sea-mammal hunting and fishing already popular in the region. This greatly affected the cultures of the original societies in the area greatly. The shaded areas represent areas where Okhotsk cultural traits were distributed.
Political pressure in the Amur River Valley probably forced more Okhotsk people to migrate to southern Sakhalin Island. Crowded, they were forced to take to the sea and finally migrated to northeastern Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands. Once established, the Okhotsk of Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands concentrated on fishing, sea-mammal hunting, and trading. Archaeological excavations suggest that their trade networks reached to Honshu, China, and southern Kamchatka.
The Okhotsk people lived in pithouses, much like the Jomon of former times, but of a different - hexagonal or pentagonal - shape. Archaeological evidence, including bear skulls, also suggests that Okhotsk participated in religious rituals in which a young bear was captured, raised in captivity, and killed in order to send the visiting bear-spirit back to the spirit world. A similar ceremony is done by the Ainu to this day.
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