Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
6,200 and 4,000 cal. years BP) and Lemmetsa I (dated typologically between 5,600
and 4,000 cal. years BP) settlement sites were situated about 2-3 m above the
Littorina Sea, at the estuary-like mouth of the ancient Audru River (Kriiska and
sites have been inhabited at least during the early spring, when the seals breed on
the ice, or in late summer/autumn, when they make feeding tours in bays and rivers.
Our reconstruction of palaeoshoreline and topography also shows natural conditions
that are well suited to year-round base camps behind the protective Littorina coastal
layers rich in finds, the diversity of the artefacts and the large size of dwelling sites
8.6 Conclusions
The most important conclusions to emerge from the project reported here could be
listed as follows:
•
Temporal and spatial water-level change model for the SW Estonian coastal
zone of the Baltic Sea was compiled by combining the interpolated water-level
surfaces for the different Baltic stages with a reconstructed shore displacement
curve.
•
We presented a displacement curve for the Pärnu area (SW Estonia), which
records three regressive phases of the past Baltic Sea interrupted by Ancylus Lake
and Littorina Sea transgressions with magnitudes of 12 and 10 m, respectively.
•
Due to uncertainties in stratigraphy and chronology the two sites in the Pärnu
area with buried organic beds displaying possible pre-Littorina Sea transgression
water level below present-day sea level were not considered in the current shore
displacement reconstructions.
•
Palaeogeographic situations for different Baltic Sea stages were reconstructed by
subtracting the water-level change model from the modern digital terrain model
in order to understand preferences in the selection of settlement sites of Stone
Age man at the shifting coastline of the Baltic Sea in SW Estonia.
•
Reconstructions show that most buried organic matter sites lay at or slightly
above the highest coastlines of the modelled Ancylus Lake and Littorina Sea,
probably as a result of the good preservation conditions due to rapid burial. This
may make it possible to discover new sites of buried organic matter.
•
Uncertainties in palaeogeographic reconstructions described in this chapter are
related to subsequent deposition and erosion since the time that was modelled.
Holocene peat and gyttja were removed from the digital terrain model, although
postglacial marine, eolian and fluvial deposits influence palaeoreconstructions.
