Editing History of Estonia (section)

===Neolithic Period===
The beginning of the [[Neolithic Period]] is marked by the [[ceramics]] of the Narva culture, and appear in Estonia at the beginning of the 5th millennium. The oldest finds date from around 4900 BC. The first pottery was made of thick clay mixed with pebbles, shells or plants. The Narva-type ceramics are found throughout almost the entire Estonian coastal region and on the islands. The stone and bone tools of the era have a notable similarity with the artifacts of the Kunda culture.
[[File:CombCeramicPottery.jpg|thumb|left|[[Pit–Comb Ware culture|Comb Ceramic]] pottery at the Estonian History Museum]]
Around the beginning of 4th millennium BC [[Pit–Comb Ware culture|Comb Ceramic culture]] arrived in Estonia.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{harvnb|Mäesalu|Lukas|Laur|Tannberg|2004|p=}}{{Page needed|date=September 2010}}</ref> Until the early 1980s the arrival of [[Balto-Finnic peoples]], the ancestors of the Estonians, Finns, and Livonians, on the shores of the [[Baltic Sea]] was associated with the Comb Ceramic Culture.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FxBJAQAAMAAJ&dq=the+ancestors+of+the+Estonians%2C+Finns%2C+and+Livonians%2C+on+the+shores+of+the+Baltic+Sea+was+associated+with+the+Comb+Ceramic+Culture.&pg=PA2 |title=Background Notes, Estonia, September 1997 |date=1997 |language=en}}</ref><!--auto-deleted deprecated source may need replacement--> However, such a linking of archaeologically defined cultural entities with linguistic ones cannot be proven, and it has been suggested that the increase of settlement finds in the period is more likely to have been associated with an economic boom related to the warming of climate. Some researchers have even argued that a [[Uralic language]] may have been spoken in Estonia and Finland since the end of the last glaciation.<ref name="the_cambridge_history_of_scandinavia">{{Cite book
| last1 = Helle
| first1 = Knut
| author1-link = Knut Helle
| title = The Cambridge History of Scandinavia
| year = 2003
| publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]]
| location = Cambridge, UK
| isbn = 0-521-47299-7
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=PFBtfXG6fXAC&pg=PA51
| page = 51
}}</ref>
[[File:CordWareBoatAxe.jpg|thumb|[[Corded Ware culture]] pottery and stone axes, at the EHM]]
The burial customs of the comb pottery people included additions of figures of animals, birds, snakes and men carved from bone and [[amber]]. Antiquities from comb pottery culture are found from northern Finland to eastern [[Prussia]].

The beginning of the Late Neolithic Period about 2200 BC is characterized by the appearance of the [[Corded Ware culture]], pottery with corded decoration and well-polished stone axes (s.c. boat-shape axes). Evidence of agriculture is provided by charred grains of wheat on the wall of a corded-ware vessel found in Iru settlement. Osteological analysis show an attempt was made to domesticate the [[wild boar]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Subrenat|2004|p=}}</ref>

Specific burial customs were characterized by the dead being laid on their sides with their knees pressed against their breast, one hand under the head. Objects placed into the graves were made of the bones of domesticated animals.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>