LATE MESOLITHIC NARVA STAGE IN ESTONIA: POTTERY, SETTLEMENT TYPES AND CHRONOLOGY

This paper gives a systematized overview of different Narva stage sites in Estonia, describing their artefactual and archaeozoological material, and environmental conditions. We demonstrate the diversity of Narva stage settlement types (sites on coastal river estuaries, coast, coastal lagoons, inland river banks and shores of inland lakes) and economy (marine, terrestrial/inland aquatic and mixed subsistence) in the region. A further site-based description of Narva pottery is also provided in order to exemplify the similarities and differences of this earliest pottery type in the eastern Baltic. We also present a comprehensive list of all currently available Narva stage radiocarbon dates from Estonia and Ingermanland (north-western Russia) according to which the Narva-type pottery in the northern part of its distribution area dates to the period c. 5200-3900 cal BC. Additionally, the issues of dating food crust, especially the high risk of reservoir effect offsets, are emphasized. We carried out a comparative study dating contemporaneous food crusts and plant remains and conducting lipid residue analysis employing combined methods of gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-C-IRMS, EA-IRMS). The results demonstrate the implications and importance of characterizing lipid residues so that samples with reservoir correction can at least be identified.