Kunda Culture, with its roots in
Swiderian culture is a
mesolithic hunter-gatherer communities of the
Baltic forest zone extending eastwards through
Latvia into northern
Russia dating to the period 8000–5000 BC by calibrated
radiocarbon dating. It is named after the
Estonian town
Kunda, about east of
Tallinn along the
Gulf of Finland, near where the first extensively studied settlement was discovered on Lammasmäe Hill and in the surrounding peat
bog.
Most Kunda settlements are located near the edge of the forests beside rivers, lakes, or marshes.
Elk were extensively hunted, perhaps helped by trained domestic hunting-dogs. On the coast seal hunting is represented. Pike and other fish were taken from the rivers. There is a rich bone and antler industry, especially in relation to fishing gear. Tools were decorated with simple geometric designs, lacking the complexity of the contemporary
Maglemosian Culture communities to the southwest.
The Kunda Culture is succeeded by the
Narva culture who use pottery and show some traces of food production. The oldest known Kunda culture settlement in Estonia is
Pulli settlement.
Origin of culture
The Kunda culture appears to have undergone a transition from the
Palaeolithic Swiderian culture located previously over much of the same range. One such transition settlement, Pasieniai 1C in
Lithuania, features stone tools of both Late Swiderian and early Kunda. One shape manufactured in both cultures is the retouched tanged point. The final Swiderian is dated 7800-7600 BC by calibrated radiocarbon dating, which is in the
Preboreal period, at the end of which time with no gap the early Kunda begins. Evidently the descendants of the Swiderians were the first to settle Estonia when it became habitable. Other post-Swiderian groups extended as far east as the
Ural mountains.
Locations of sites
