Ground‐penetrating Radar and Geological Study of the Kudruküla Stone Age Archaeological Site, Northeast Estonia

Abstract

A combined ground‐penetrating radar (GPR), drilling and diatom survey was carried out in order to characterize formation of the Kudruküla Stone Age Comb Ware archaeological site, northeast Estonia. A few decades ago a cultural layer was discovered, located within fine‐grained sands of the right bank of the Kudruküla Stream an altitude of 1.25–1.60 m above sea level. The layer is 15–35 cm thick and composed of poorly sorted sand of intensive reddish colour with abundant arte‐ and ecofacts, human bones, burned hearthstones and charcoal pieces. Artefacts, in particular pottery, are well preserved and frequently present as large pieces. The Kudruküla site holds an exceptional position among other Stone Age coastal settlements in that it is not located directly on top of beach ridges, but is buried under ~3 m of sand. When the Kudruküla settlement existed the level of the Litorina Sea was ~6 m above present sea level, which is ~4.5 m above the present location of the cultural layer. The current research is used to describe the geological structure of the area to provide a perspective on the history of the cultural material, and reveals that the cultural material is not restricted to one layer/lens only because it is irregularly and widely distributed within the sands of Kudruküla. The GPR and diatom analyses show that the Kudruküla cultural material is redeposited, because it occurs within an ancient point‐bar succession of a (Narva) river meander. Originally, the dwelling site had been located on top of the Narva‐Jõesuu sandy coastal ridges, which subsequently suffered erosion and the sand resedimented at the Kudruküla location. Good preservation of the cultural items shows that, after redeposition, they were buried fast, probably within a year. The present Kudruküla stream has cut into the floodplain of the ancient (Narva) river to expose the redeposited layer/lens. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Extensive Farming in Estonia Started through a Sex-Biased Migration from the Steppe

“…Kudruküla The Stone Age site is located on the coastal area of North-Eastern Estonia, 2.7 km away from the modern shoreline of the Baltic Sea. The site was discovered at the end of the 1960s (Eldar Efendiev), the excavations were held in 1980-1981 (Kaarel Jaanits and Eldar Efendiev) [85] and geoarchaeological research was conducted in 2010-2013 (Aivar Kriiska, Alina T sugai, Jü ri Plaado, Alar Rosentau and Tiit Hang) [86].…”

“…The human remains were recovered from a layer of settlement and probably a cemetery site which had been washed away by the river and later buried underneath 3 m thick sand layers [86]. Bones from at least three individuals (one child, two adults).…”

Geophysical and Geochemical Studies on Historical Layers in the Area of Old Krakow, Poland

“…Wardas et al , ; Łyskowski and Wardas‐Lasoń, ) or in archaeological implementation (e.g. Zhao et al , ; Tsugai et al , ). Unfortunately in this study, due to the characteristics of the medium, high conductivity, the conducted measurements resulted in geophysical images with very small depth of penetration range.…”