Yukaghir

The Yukaghir group gathers the Siberian hunting peoples who speak Yukaghir languages, centered on the basin of the Kolyma River. When Russians arrived in the 1600s, the Yukaghir tribes held land from the Lena to the mouth of the Anadyr, and included the Chuvans and the sedentary Anauls. They are thought to descend from the Neolithic Ymyyakhtakh culture.

They lived by following deer, moose, wild sheep and sable, and by fishing, and kept reindeer mostly for transport. Their dwelling was the conical chum. Their languages, Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir, are of unknown origin. Epidemics, wars and Russian rule thinned their numbers, and many were absorbed by the Yakuts, Evens and Russians.