page_title: Koryaks
section_title: Origin
hierarchical_section_title: Koryaks / Origin
caption_attribution_description: Map of Russia with highlighted area traditionally inhabited by the Koryak people.
context_page_description: Koryaks are an indigenous people of the Russian Far East, who live immediately north of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Kamchatka Krai and inhabit the coastlands of the Bering Sea. The cultural borders of the Koryaks include Tigilsk in the south and the Anadyr basin in the north.
  The Koryaks are culturally similar to the Chukchis of extreme northeast Siberia. The Koryak language and Alutor, are linguistically close to the Chukchi language. All of these languages are members of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family. They are more distantly related to the Itelmens on the Kamchatka Peninsula. All of these peoples and other, unrelated minorities in and around Kamchatka are known collectively as Kamchadals.
  Neighbors of the Koryaks include the Evens to the west, the Alutor to the south, the Kerek to the east, and the Chukchi to the northeast.
  The Koryak are typically split into two groups: the coastal people Nemelan meaning 'village dwellers,' due to their living in villages. Their lifestyle is based on local fishing and marine mammal hunting. The inland Koryak, reindeer herders, are called Chaucu, meaning 'rich in reindeer.'
context_section_description: The origin of the Koryak is unknown. Anthropologists have speculated that a land bridge connected the Eurasian and North American continent during Late Pleistocene. It is possible that migratory peoples crossed the modern-day Koryak land en route to North America. Scientists have suggested that people traveled back and forth between this area and Haida Gwaii before the ice age receded. They theorize that the ancestors of the Koryak had returned to Siberian Asia from North America during this time. Cultural and some linguistic similarity exist between the Nivkh and the Koryak.
caption: The Koryak in Russian Federation
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