ABSTRACT
Paleolithic Siberians might have been in contact with Europeans, or might even have had European roots. In modern Siberia, there may be as many as 35 extant native languages and 14 to 18 dialects. In their subsequent century-long march to the Pacific, the Russians encountered no fewer than 120 languages and dozens more dialects. With Primor'ye, Russians acquired the excellent harbor of Vladivostok, a port that Murav'yev claimed for the crown that summer. Ivan the Terrible, in fact, was more interested in subjugating the Baltic Livonians than the peoples of the Siberian Khanate. Apart from the domestication of the dog and widespread fishing with harpoons and hooks, Neolithic Siberians continued to subsist on hunting and gathering for five millennia after the beginning of the Middle Eastern Neolithic. Extremely mobile, the Karasuks roamed the vast countryside between the Urals and Yakutia. Like itinerant peddlers, wherever they went, they exchanged copper and bronze artifacts for local raw materials and folk.
