Introduction The pages of the journal "Archeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia" regularly become a venue for fruitful discussions on the most important practical and theoretical problems of archaeological science - the origin and migration of modern humans and their ancestors, the forms and content of the transition from the Middle to the late Paleolithic period, approaches to the interpretation of primitive art, etc. It seems that the problem of reconstruction of life support systems and mechanisms of adaptation of ancient societies to various natural landscapes and economic systems will fit into the circle of such discussions. As a first step, we propose to consider one of the interesting models of farming formulated by the creative tandem of an archaeologist (D. L. Brodyansky) and a hydrobiologist (V. A. Rakov) based on the materials of ancient cultures of Primorye and adjacent territories, where the so-called shell heaps containing a significant number of oyster leaves (Crassostrea gigas) were recorded. The authors called it "aquaculture" and for more than 20 years they have continued to actively increase the argument for their hypothesis in a series of works published in Russia, as well as in the USA, Japan, Korea and China. It was presented in the most concentrated form in a report at the All-Russian Archaeological Congress (Novosibirsk, 2006) [Brodyansky, 2006] and in an article in this journal [Rakov, Brodyansky, 2007]. The term "aquaculture" is used in a number of popular scientific works and textbooks published for students (for example: [Brodyansky, 19956; Brodyansky and Rakov, 1986]). Several circumstances prompted me to enter into a discussion with the authors of the "aquaculture" model. First, I have been working on similar issues for a long time - I am working on a project dedicated to salmon fishing in the archaic and traditional cultures of Pacifica, which is also a special form of exploitation of water resources. Secondly, the scientif ... Read more