Archaeological Traces of Hunter-gatherer Seasonal Occupation in Western Coastal Estonia from the Second Half of the 6th Millennium to the End of the 3rd Millennium BC

Abstract

Results of archaeological surveys of paleocoastlines in the Western Estonian Lowland are discussed with paleogeographic reconstructions. Mapped sites and stray finds can be dated to the period between the end of the Pre-Pottery Mesolithic and the end of the Neolithic (roughly 5300–2000 cal BC). Uniquely for Estonia and neighbouring countries in this time frame, the overwhelming majority of the sites are aceramic (and the rest feature very few pottery finds) and the find diversity is otherwise low, too. The findings are interpreted as traces of seasonal occupation and mobility, for the first time demonstrated in the Eastern Baltics on such a large scale.

Jägala Jõesuu v Stone Age settlement Site in Northern Estonia: Spatial and Contextual Analysis of Finds

“…Dozens of such short-term seasonal hunting and fishing sites are known on the islands and coast of western Estonia, which are quite similar in the low diversity of finds and especially in the absence or scarcity of pottery sherds, ground stone and wood chopping tools (e.g. Lõugas et al 1996, 204-206;Jussila & Kriiska 2004, 4;Kriiska 2002; for a more detailed discussion of the Stone Age settlement seasonality and mobility on the west coast of Estonia, see Sander & Kriiska 2021).…”

An Integrated Result of Gis-Based Approach to Palaeogeographical Reconstructions and Archaeological Surveys of Coastal Palaeolagoons at the Mouths of the Rivers Vihterpalu, Teenuse and Velise (Western Estonia)

“…In the present study, the Triangle library implementation of the Delaunay interpolation included with the CloudCompare computer software was used (Shewchuk 1996;2002 and references therein). As the research areas are situated near the former coastlines dating to the LTM or later, having gradually become habitable because of lowering sea levels, and both the typological dating of the archaeological finds and the dating of the sites by coastal chronology agree on the coastal or near-coastal location of the sites (Sander & Kriiska 2021), the question of the rate of organic sediment formation (peat accumulation) is irrelevant for the present work because the peat layers pre-dating the LTM would be buried by non-organic marine sediments and by the time of the formation of the later peat layers, the coastline would have retreated further away. In other words, the present study is concerned with lately exposed "empty" surface cover depressions with minimal organic layers.…”

“…In addition to 668 finds from 45 settlement sites, 23 stray finds were gathered from 18 locations. The locations of most of the sites and stray finds have been published previously (Sikk et al 2020;Sander and Kriiska 2021), except for the Sipa I-II and Manni I sites, which are published for the first time. Twenty-six sites were in the coastal zone up to 10 km from the coast and only two sites were found further inland (Sipa I-II).…”

“…The present paper relies on the modelled former sea levels and locations of the coastline (Fig. 1: left) reconstructed by coast displacement curves for south-western Estonia (Rosentau et al 2011), Tallinn (northern Estonia;Muru et al 2017) and Lake Veskijärv (near the northern study area; Grudzinska et al 2013), considering the post-glacial rebound (Saarse et al 2003;, published by Sander & Kriiska (2021).…”

“…2) are presented as case studies, together with the results of archaeological surveys conducted in the same area in 2015-2017 and in 2020. The archaeological surveys were part of a wider project to map the Stone Age settlement process in the West Estonian Lowland, discussed by the authors elsewhere in a more general manner (Sander & Kriiska 2021).…”