The Stone Age to Late Iron Age in the Maardu area, northern Estonia, as revealed by archaeological excavations. The fossil fields at Saha-Loo / Du Paléolithique à la fin de l'âge du Fer dans la zone de Maardu, nord de l'Estonie d'après les fouilles archéologiques

A brief survey is given of earlier excavated monuments in the surroundings of Lake Maardu. Except for a few Neolithic finds, the majority of the antiquities examined belong either to the Late Bronze Age or to the Iron Age. In the course of a new inventory carried out in spring 1992, three settlement sites were discovered 500 m south-east of Lake Maardu. A few potsherds gathered from these sites have been dated to the Early Metal Period. This same inventory also yielded a unique complex of fossil fields at Saha-Loo, 1.2 km west of the lake, consisting of both fields surrounded by stone baulks (243) and rounded clearance heaps (118), and also what are probably cattle paths. One further complex of ancient fields was later discovered at Proosa, 2.3 km west of the lake. Investigations at Saha-Loo in 1992 ascertained that 1) the fields were established in the Late Bronze Age ; 2) two groups of fields can be recognized : «Celtic» fields surrounded by long baulks on all sides and fields marked only by a few clearance heaps. The excavations showed, however, that the latter were partly marked off by very low stone baulks which had previously been invisible and that they did not differ essentially in shape and size from the typical «Celtic» fields. 3) the clearance heaps and baulks (at least those of the «non-Celtic» fields, had not all been built at once but gradually, over a longer period of time. Only small clearance heaps were created at first, while the low baulks were built later.