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EESTI ELU reedel, 26. novembril 2021 — Friday, November 26, 2021
Nr. 47
Northern Birch Community Roots Scholarship Recipients 2021 Congratulations to the recipients of the 2021 Northern Birch Credit Union Community Roots Scholarships! There were 15 scholarships awarded to a wonderful group of students, all active in their local communities. Northern Birch Credit Union is proud to offer scholarship opportunities for students each year. These scholarships award active participation in the community, encouraging youth to stay connected to their roots and give back to the organizations around them. We encourage students to check our website to learn about our scholarships when they open again in fall 2022. www.northernbirchcu.com/community/scholarships
AMALIE KANNE First year student at McMaster University, Amalie is studying Earth & Environmental Sciences. She has been active in the Latvian community including involvement at summer camps, girl guides and the Latvian school, both as a stu dent and a teacher.
MARIKA GULENS-TAUBE Marika is in her first year of a Master’s program at the University of Amsterdam studying sociology. She has been active in the Latvian community, attending schools and summer camps, dancing folk dances, and has been a board member of LNJAK since 2016.
Time Machine: The Corded Ware Culture in Estonia Vincent Teetsov Wind back to 2900 BCE. At this time, Indigenous people from the coast of present-day Newfoundland all the way to the northeast United States were operating a thriving system of fishing and hunting of mammals at sea, along with having created a currency for transactions. In Mesopotamia, walls were being built for war. The Harappan Civilization, which created one of the earliest metropolises in history, was growing in India at this time, too. As described in a 2017 issue of the journal Current Biology, while all of this was happening nearly 5,000 years ago, the first
indications of crop cultivation had appeared in Estonia. However, “intensive cultivation and animal husbandry” was yet to begin. In the journal, it’s said that these developments were associated with a shift from the Comb Ceramic Culture to what’s known as the Corded Ware Culture (or nöörkeraa mika kultuur). Both of these cultures are identified by the markings made on their ceramics. In the pottery of the Comb Ceramic Culture, you’ll see short diagonal lines scraped across the pottery; whereas the pottery of the Corded Ware Culture (hereafter “CWC”) has concentric circles and patterns going around it, which look like cords. Other
CHRISTMAS GREETINGS 2021 The Estonian Central Council is dedicated to continuing the tradition of publishing your Christmas greetings in Eesti Elu. The cost is $15 per individual greeting and $20 for a family greeting. Payment and details (names to include in the greeting) can be done as follows: kairihemingway@gmail.com or Eesti Elu office, tel 416-733-4550, email: eetalitus@eestielu.ca Payment: Cheque: Kairi Hemingway,c/o EKN 304 Soudan Ave, Toronto, ON M4S 1W5 or etransfer: kairihemingway@gmail.com Deadline for submission is December 14, 2021. To learn more about ECC activities, visit our website and Facebook page and follow us on Instagram! Website Link: https://www.estoniancouncil.ca/en Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/estoniancouncil Twitter: @EccEkn
KRISTA TORA A first-year student, Krista is at tending the University of Ottawa for Political Science and Commu nication. Krista has been an active member of the Latvian communi ty, attending and teaching at the schools, going to summer camps, and attending the Latvian summer school Garezers.
trademarks of the CWC were their burial practices, where knees were tucked into the chest, as well as the crafting of stone battle axe heads. What’s significant about the narrative of the CWC people? For one thing, it shows the fluidity of settlements in Estonia and the rest of ancient northern Europe. Some archaeologists hypo thesize that the CWC is partially descended from the nomadic Yamnaya Culture (from the steppe that extends across present-day Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan), who moved west, along with their cattle. The Yamnaya invaded and had children with the agrarian people living in northern Europe, including present-day Estonia. The CWC are, in turn, the progenitors of people across this region. And though it has proven controversial in archaeo logical circles, some academics have posited that the movement of the Yamnaya Culture is be hind the spread of Indo-Euro pean languages. Dr. Kristian Kristiansen from the University of Gothenburg explains how Yamnaya raids and a plague outbreak in circa 3000 BCE enabled their inte gration into the areas they invaded. In a Live Science article from 2017, it’s suggested, based on Dr. Kristiansen’s re search, that “Neolithic women, familiar with making ceramics, probably developed corded ware pottery in order to evoke the woven and wooden contain ers that would have been familiar to the Yamnaya husbands.”
SANDRIA MAGRICS A first-year student at McMaster University, Sandria is studying Medical Radiation Sciences. San dria grew up participating in the Hamilton Latvian community, and currently volunteers as a teacher at the Hamilton Latvian School.
TOMS MAKSINS Toms is a first-year student attend ing Carleton University. Born in Latvia, Toms and his family moved to Canada in 2010. Toms has been active in the local Latvian Schools and camps.
SARMA MARTINSONS Sarma is a first-year nursing stu dent at Western University. Her childhood was spent being in volved in numerous Latvian activ ities such as folk dancing, and at tending Latvian summer camps both in Canada and in the U.S.
LIVA GULENS-TAUBE Liva is currently in her third year of a Humanities program at York University. Liva has been involved in the Toronto Latvian community as a teacher and a chorist, as well as being a board member of the Latvian National Youth Associa tion. (Part 2 in next week’s issue)
Corded Ware pottery fragments.
Photo: tutulus.ee
In 2018, archaeologist Dr. Elisabeth Holmqvist-Sipilä, of the University of Helsinki, wrote that “In traditional so cieties it is usually women who are in charge of the pottery craft and it is also common for women to relocate upon marriage... It is likely that the first Corded Ware Culture arti sans to arrive at the FennoBaltic and Swedish coasts were women who had learned their craft at their place of birth. They would have begun to use the clay available at their new home, but they mixed it with crushed pieces of pottery they had brought with them.” This may have been done to preserve the memory of their original homes. This kind of pottery was made in and traded between Estonia, Finland, and Sweden. Pottery was a prized possession brought along even during relo cation, allowing us to see where people moved. Finally, as developed in a 2007 research paper by Lembi Lõugas, Aivar Kriiska, and
Liina Maldre, excavation of neolithic graves across main land Estonia and the islands has “helped to date the spread of the Corded Ware Culture, and since these graves contained bones of domestic animals, they also shed some light on the timing of the adoption of animal husbandry in the East Baltic region.” These burials are dated between 2900 and 2100 BCE. The paper concludes that subsistence agriculture in Estonia developed no earlier than 1,000 BCE – the path from hunting and gathering to agri culture was delayed due to how bountifully the forests and coastlines provided game and fish. I’ve often heard archaeolo gists joked about because of their interest in pottery, but domestic wares like these clarify the trajectory of civilizations through trade, migration, and invasion.
ESTONIAN LIFE
