Ancient Estonia

The earliest written mention of Estonian territory or the ancestors of the Estonians can be found primarily in Icelandic sagas (half literary and half historical sources) and in Latin or East Slavonic chronicles, transcribed in the 12 th –13 th centuries. However, the name Aestii ("Estonia" in Estonian is "Eesti") was first recorded much earlier, as it can be found in Roman author Tacitus’ work De origine et situ Germanorum (Germania), compiled in about the year 98, where it refers to a people living to the east of the Germans. Aestii appears also in the chronicle of Roman historian Jordanes, however it is assumed that the author meant other tribes, probably the inhabitants of the south-eastern Baltic coast.

The ancestors of Estonians used agriculture as their primary food resource. It is even said that it was the most northern area were inhabitants engaged in agriculture. Interestingly, still by the end of the first millenium, 3/4 of the land of today's Estonia was covered in forests. The clime was similar to what it is nowadays but a bit more humid and maritime. This resulted in river flooding and some forests turning into bogs.

Riisa bog in Soome National Park in south-western Estonia.
Source: Wikipedia, photo by Olev Mihkelmaa.