Could any of the LoIaM crops function in the Ainu lands?
All of them (I mentioned bistort a bit ago), but the challenge is making them crops (they're more vegetables than any potential staple, which the Ainu already had). Kamchatkans used all of them extensively, but there's no real pressure to actually turn them into anything since they got what they needed out of them. Domesticated bistort or sweetvetch (which would produce more but realistically wouldn't be the staples LoIaM portrays them as) would be nice additions, but that's all they are--additions. It wasn't like Norway or Estonia needed much in the way of new domesticates to move from sets of sparsely populated chiefdoms to more complex and populated societies.
 
Ainu with better seafaring skills--maybe they go for whaling and such and these skills develop from there--could be crucial for the history of Pacific Northwest Indians if they ever go that far. Maybe a very early fur trade? Or increased demand for walrus/narwhal ivory? Still, they were metalworkers IIRC, and if they can help spread the knowledge of how to smelt, say, copper (commonly used by Athabaskans and the Tlingit in its native form), perhaps those people would be smelting gold and silver soon, hence give even more reason to visit there.

Perhaps they could settle the Commander Islands, the westernmost extent of the Aleutian Islands and uninhabited until the Russians came along. If they managed to expand a bit further up the eastern coast of Kamchatka it wouldn't be much further to jump on a boat and sail to the Commanders. From the Commander Islands they could trade with the Aleuts on the Rat Islands and the Near Islands. Maybe a hybrid Ainu-Aleut society could even be formed on the Western Aleutians, with trade networks linking it all the way down the Pacific Northwest.
 
Why does Sakhalin have such a small population today? It’s the same size and on the same latitude as Ireland but has not even one tenth the population. By contrast Hokkaido has the same size and population as Ireland.

If Hokkaido and Sakhalin was one country and it had the population density as Hokkaido it would have a total population comparable to Sweden or Greece.
 
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Why does Sakhalin have such a small population today? It’s the same size and on the same latitude as Ireland but has not even one tenth the population. By contrast Hokkaido has the same size and population as Ireland.

If Hokkaido and Sakhalin was one country and it had the population density as Hokkaido it would have a total population comparable to Sweden or Greece.
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It's significantly colder, even Hokkaido is.
 
Why does Sakhalin have such a small population today? It’s the same size and on the same latitude as Ireland but has not even one tenth the population. By contrast Hokkaido has the same size and population as Ireland.

If Hokkaido and Sakhalin was one country and it had the population density as Hokkaido it would have a total population comparable to Sweden or Greece.
Ireland has the Gulf Stream. Sakhalin... doesn't.
 
It's significantly colder, even Hokkaido is.

It looks like climate is the reason the Ainu only populated southern Sakhalin, with it’s similar climate to Hokkaido, leaving the northern half to Siberian peoples. Maybe their civilization just wasn’t built for it.

From that map it seems Tibetan yaks would have thrived in Siberia and the Russian Far East.
 
Ireland has the Gulf Stream. Sakhalin... doesn't.

More importantly, Ireland is on the west coast of the Eurasian landmass whereas Sakhalin is on the east coast. For comparison, St. John's, NL and Seattle are on the same line of latitude, and in spite of the fact that Western Washington has the Alaska Current offshore, Seattle is about 15°F warmer in the winter and 6°F warmer in the summer than St. John's.
 
Why does Sakhalin have such a small population today? It’s the same size and on the same latitude as Ireland but has not even one tenth the population. By contrast Hokkaido has the same size and population as Ireland.

If Hokkaido and Sakhalin was one country and it had the population density as Hokkaido it would have a total population comparable to Sweden or Greece.
Most of its population was deported by the Soviets after WWII. If Japan still owned their half of the island (or the whole thing) then while it wouldn't have Hokkaido levels of population density, it would have a few hundred thousand more people easily.
 
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