In recent years the Okhotsk Sea region has become of increasing interest to students of New World cultural origins and relationships, particularly with regard to the problem of the Aleutians as a diffusion channel. But any real attack on this problem has been hampered by the gross inadequacy of the data. The few available sources in western languages are far from satisfactory; and attempts to augment these by utilizing illustrations from Japanese publications, divorced from the explanatory text, are fraught with danger.

The writer has therefore undertaken a systematic survey of the rather considerable field work done in this region by Japanese archaeologists in prewar years. Reports on this have been published exclusively in the Japanese language, which has placed them effectively beyond the reach of American archaeologists, although certain ones have been cited in American works for their illustrations.