Kunda

a city in Rakvere Raion, Estonian SSR, located on the high shore of the Gulf of Finland at the mouth of the Kunda River, 25 km from the Rakvere railroad station. Kunda has the Punane Kunda cement factory, one of the first in Russia, founded in 1871. Kunda has been known since the 13th century; it has been a city since 1938.

Near Kunda on Lammasmägi Hill, formerly an island in a prehistoric lake, are the remains of a Mesolithic settlement (seventh millennium to fifth millennium B.C.). It was discovered by the Estonian geologist and archaeologist C. Grewingk in the 1870’s. The site was partially excavated in 1880, 1933–37, 1949, and 1961. The finds included numerous bone tips for harpoons and ice chisels; bone arrowheads and spearheads; objects made of antler; primitive stone axes, adzes, and chisels; and end scrapers made of quartz and flint. Neolithic articles have also been found, among them pottery with pit-comb designs and polished stone objects dating from the end of the third millennium B.C.