Pulli settlement
Pulli settlement, located on the right bank of the Pärnu River, is the first known human settlement in Estonia, - 2 kilometers from the town of Sindi (Sindi is 14 kilometers from the county capital Pärnu). According to radiocarbon dating, it was settled around 11,000 years ago, at the beginning of the 9th millennium BC. The dog tooth, found from the Pulli settlement, is also a first evidence of domesticated dog existence on territory of Estonia.
In Pulli settlement were excavated wholly 1175 pieces of different items, among them tools used by humans of mesolithic historical period, most of them made of flintstone. Many items were arrow-heads, made of flintstone. A few items made of bone was found too - fishhooks, accessories made of animal claws, etc. In Baltic area, the best flint(stone) sources were located in south- and south-east of Baltic, (now territories of Latvia and Lithuania); also in Belorussia. There is few natural sources of flint on territory of Estonia too. However, black flintstone with high quality from south-Lithuania and Belorus is identical with these examples, which were found in Pulli settlement. Propably humans, who lived in Pulli, were moved here from south,(after ice was melted) along Daugava river in Latvia, then along the Latvian-Estonian coastline of Baltic sea and finally to the mouth of Pärnu river. 9000 years BC, Pulli settlement located excactly there, where Pärnu river flows into the Baltic sea, but today it is about 14-16 kilometers upstream from sea.
During the Stone Age Estonian area is clearly discernible throughout almost the whole Stone Age as an original technocomplex, where quartz dominates as the material for small tools produced by a splitting technique. (with the only exception being the Pulli site with its extensive use of imported flint)
Pulli settlement was found in 1967, during excavation of sand from right coast of river Pärnu. Archaeological excavations were carry out at 1968.-73 and 1975.-76 by estonian archaeologist L. Jaanits.
Three reliable 14C datings come from the oldest known settlement site of Pulli, from the beginning of the Mesolithic: 9620±120 (Hel-2206A), 9600±120 (TA-245) and 9575±115 (TA-176) 14C years (Raukas et al. 1995, 121). These belong, with at probability of 95.4 %, to the period 9300–8600 cal. BC, which makes the average 8950 cal BC, considering the probability of 68.2 % even 9000 years cal BC. The Mesolithic archaeological complex in the Eastern Baltic bears the common name of Kunda Culture.
Science
Early Holocene coastal settlements and palaeoenvironment on the shore of the Baltic Sea at Pärnu, southwestern Estonia
Studies were conducted on 16 sections of buried organic matter (pre-Ancylus Lake and pre-Littorina Sea) and associated Stone
Age cultural layers in the Pärnu area, southwestern Estonia. Buried organic beds are each part of a sedimentary sequence, which is
repeated, forming two overlying sets of an orderly succession of five layers. The organic sedimentation ofthe lower set (set 1)
occurred about 10,800–10,200 years BP, and that of the upper set (set 2) about 9450–7800 years BP. Associated with set 1 is the
Early-Mesolithic settlement of Pulli, and with set 2 are the Stone Age cultural layers at Sindi-Lodja. The Early- and Middle-
Mesolithic sites in Estonia are concentrated on shores of rivers and lakes to utilise of a variability ofresources. The hunters and
fishermen followed the ancient Pärnu River downstream to the receding shoreline ofthe Yoldia Sea. After about 10,700 years BP,
they were forced to retreat inland in front of the transgressive Ancylus Lake shore which first inundated the Paikuse area about
10,400 years BP, and Pulli and higher sites about 10,200 years BP. The total amplitude ofthe transgression preceded 11m and
reached up to 14m a.s.l. in the area. The Littorina Sea transgression reached 7m a.s.l. after 8000–7800 years BP. The Mesolithic,
Neolithic and modern sites on top of each other in the Pärnu area may suggest that, although years apart, they were inhabited by the
same group of people who stayed in the area and moved back and forth together with the shifting shoreline of the Baltic Sea.
See also
- Glacial period: The most recent ice age ended about 10,000 years ago
- Epi-Paleolithic
- Prehistoric Europe
External links
- Early Holocene coastal settlements and palaeoenvironment on the shore of the Baltic Sea at Pärnu, southwestern Estonia - PDF
- Stone age settlement and economic processes in the Estonian coastal area and islands
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