itorop

Updated: May 24, 2025

This theory was founded on the supposed discovery of relics of pit-dwellers in the islands of Yezo and Itorop, and their hasty identification as Kuro-pok-guru the Ainu term for underground dwellers whose modern representatives are seen among the Kurilsky or their neighbours in Kamchatka and Saghalien.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

But closer examination of the Yezo and Itorop pits showed that there was complete absence of any mark of antiquity such as the presence of large trees or even deep-rooted brushwood; that they were arranged in regular order, suggesting a military encampment rather than the abode of savages; that they were of uniform size, with few exceptions; that on excavation they yielded fragments of hard wood, unglazed pottery, and a Japanese dirk, and, finally, that their site corresponded with that of military encampments established in Yezo and the Kuriles by the Japanese Government in the early part of the nineteenth century as a defence against Russian aggression.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era