The Kamchadal or Itelmen people were the original inhabitants of the Kamchatka Peninsula of eastern Siberia. Earliest archaeological evidence of this people dates from 5200 years ago. When first contact was made with them by Russians circa 1697, they numbered some 12,500; less than fifty years later their numbers had dropped to fewer than 8500, reduced by introduced disease and forced assimilation. The Itelmen language is unique, having relatively little similarity to that of the Chukchi or the Koryak, their nearest neighbours. Traditionally they were river fishermen, fur hunters and gatherers. They lived in semi-underground dwellings in extended family communities. Their religion was animistic; they believed that everything in the world and every event has a spirit. The remaining Itelmen today live in the Koryak Autonomous Region on the west coast of Kamchatkabetween Sedanka and Sopochnoye, mostly in the villages of Kovran, Tigil, Palana and Khiriuzovo. Itelmen are anthropologically Mongoloid North-Asian like the Koryak. They were first studied academically by Vladimir G. Bogoraz and were described in his 1922 book on the Chukchi.