Summary

The Kundak culture was an early Mesolithic culture, named after the rich site of Lammasmägi on a hill and in the surrounding peat bog. The site is located at Kunda 110 km east of Tallinn in northeastern Estonia on the Gulf of Finland, dated to about 8,500-5,000 BC. The dates are calibrated carbon 14 dates.

The customer culture evolved from the Swiderian culture. It was replaced by the Narva culture, which had pottery and in its late stages shows traces of animal husbandry. The culture was spread in the Baltic forest region eastwards through Latvia into northern Russia, Lithuania, Poland and some settlements in Belarus.

The Kunda culture probably evolved from the Palaeolithic Swiderian culture that was spread over the same area. A transitional settlement Pasieniai 1C in Lithuania has stone tools of late Swiderian nature but also early Kunda tools. One form of tool made in both cultures is the retouched toe-tip. Late Swiderian dates to 7800-7600 BC (calibrated value) i.e. during the Preborean period. The Kundak culture begins at the same time without a time gap. The successors of the Swiderian culture were the first to populate Estonia when it became inhabited. Other post-Swiderian groups settled as far away as the Ural Mountains. There was first a discussion about the origin of the Kundak culture where a Russian scholar Sorokin suggested that some Estonian settlements are only seasonal settlements, but this has been rejected by other scholars.

Characteristic of Kundakultur are small needles for bone working, scrapers for skinning and woodworking and various flint and quartz points for hunting. The calcareous sediments at the sites have preserved numerous bone objects, including harpoons, arrowheads and pickaxes. The image shows bone tools from the culture.

The settlements were practically always chosen near water and food resources; in Estonia they were located on the banks of rivers and lakes. Later, people also lived on the sea coast. Waterways were also used for transport across the landscape. The culture of the Kundas is not known for many settlements with findings of dwellings. Even the building materials of the more permanent dwelling were mainly organic material, and they disappeared quickly after the dwelling was abandoned. Only the stones in the hearth , the soot in the soil and the possible foundation were preserved. Lithuania has settlements from the early Mesolithic period. The dwellings were often a small depression, dwelling pits. The floor area was usually about 20-40 square meters. The materials of the roof structure erected over the dwelling are unknown. Probably skins, peat and or straw of plants were used (boreal period). The roof was supported by a high post. In the centre of the dwelling was a hearth. The mobile way of life favours the use of light structures. When setting up a temporary camp, no pit was dug for the bottom of the dwelling. If the type of dwelling was a hut, the fire sometimes left traces on the ground after the hut was demolished. This type of settlement is difficult to detect.

Kundakultur had their graves near the settlements. In Kivisaari, Estonia, 20 graves and more human bones have been documented on the banks of Võtsjärvi. According to osteologists, the buried were children, men and women, aged between 2 and 35 years. The bodies were laid in the upright position. The hands were placed on the sides. Probably the dead were dressed at the time of burial. There is no red ochre in the Kundakultur graves in Estonia.

More than 300 graves have been examined from Latvia's Zvejniek, of which about 100 belong to the Mesolithic period. The oldest date is 7150 BC. The dead were buried upright, often lying on their backs, possibly wrapped in leather and with their limbs bound, dressed in their clothes and jewellery was sewn onto their clothes. The grave was sometimes equipped with working and hunting equipment and food. The dead were believed to continue living even after their death.    The tomb was covered with red ochre and covered with stones.

The settlements of the Kundakulture are known from Estonia, Latvia and northern Lithuania, but also southern Finland, Russia and Poland, as well as Belarus, have settlements. Apart from a narrow stretch of coastline on the Baltic Sea, the area was covered with forests. Most of the sites are located by lakes, rivers or bogs. The culture is the first stable settlement in the region. It is a mixed collecting and fishing-hunting culture. Among the many animal bone finds are objects of bone and horn worked into tools. At the late Mesolithic settlements on the islands of western Estonia at Könnu and Köpu, seals were hunted. Most settlements in the culture were located near the forest on the banks of rivers, lakes or wetlands. Elk were hunted intensively, probably with trained hunting dogs. Pike and other fish species were caught in the rivers. The culture has a rich bone and horn production, especially for fishing. The tools were decorated with simple geometric patterns, and lack the complexity of the contemporary Maglemose culture.

During the early Mesolithic

Kundakultur har upptäckts i Estland dessutom på följande platser Lepakose, Navesti, Moksi, Siimusaari, Umbus, Vortsjärvi Island, Narva Siyvertsi, Vihasoo, Valge-Risti, Kõpu, Ruhnu, Võhma, Pahapili, Leie Lohu, Lalsi III, Oiu I och II och Ridaküla.

Kunda

The Kunda culture is named after one of the most important settlements in the city of Kunda. The site is on the hill Hiiemägi east of the present town centre and on the hill Lammasmägi, which was then an island in the lake. The excavations were led in 1933-1937 by Richard Indreko. Richard Indreko (1900-1961) first worked on mesolitic sites. The 1933-1937 investigations at Kunda Lammasmägi were published by Indreko in 1936.

Sweater

Pulli is the oldest settlement in Estonia. The first inhabitants came to Pulli 10 000 - 11 000 years ago. The settlement is located on the Pärnu River, 2 kilometres from the town of Sindi, which is located 14 kilometres from Pärnu. Carbon-14 dating indicates that Pulli began its history 11,000 years ago. 9000 BC the Pulli settlement was located exactly where Pärnu flowed into the Baltic Sea, today it is about one and a half miles upstream. Pulli was discovered in 1967 when sand was taken from the riverbank at Pärnu. Archaeological investigations were carried out in 1968-1973 and 1975-76 by the Estonian archaeologist L. Jaanits. The settlement was buried under 5 metres of sand.

The excavations have yielded 1175 finds from the 1000 square metre settlement area. The finds include mainly objects of black flint, bone and horn. The bone artefacts are fish hooks and pendants. Black flint is not found in Estonia, but it is found in Belarus and Southern Lithuania, so researchers believe that the stone was brought to Estonia by the first settlers. The settlement that came to Pulli probably moved along the Daugava in Latvia, and then along the coast to the mouth of Pärnu. A dog's tooth found in Pulli is the oldest evidence of the domestic dog's presence in Estonia.

Zvejnieki

Zvejnieki is a Stone Age burial ground with over 400 burial mounds. It is located along a drumline on the northern shore of Lake Burtniek, in Latvia. The site has been known since the 19th century and has been used as a gravel pit. After the discovery of a human skull in 1964, Francis Zagorski started archaeological excavations, which lasted until 1978.

Of the estimated 400 graves in the burial ground, 330 are registered today, with a roughly even gender distribution. One third are children's graves. Grave goods, often animal tooth pendants, are found in both adult and child graves. A small number of male and female graves contain hunting and fishing equipment, such as harpoons, spears, spearheads and fish hooks. The first graves date to around 7000 BC in the Mesolithic period, but the burial ground was in use for almost the entire Stone Age for around four thousand years. Two settlements have been found near the burial ground: Zvejnieki I (Neolithic) and Zvejnieki II (Mesolithic).

Pasieniai

The Pasieniai IC site in Lithuania is an early settlement with foliated finds of Swiderian and Kundak culture.

Sources

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