Chapter 15 The Physical and Social Effects of the Kaali Meteorite Impact – a Review Siim Veski · Atko Heinsalu · Anneli Poska · Leili Saarse · Jüri Vassiljev 15.1 Introduction There is a concern that the world we know today will end in a global ecological disas- ter and mass extinction of species caused by a meteorite impact (Chapman and Mor- rison 1994; Chapman 2004). We are aware that rare large impacts have changed the face of our planet as reflected by extinctions at the Permian/Triassic (~251 Ma; Becker et al. 2001), Triassic/Jurassic (~200 Ma; Olsen et al. 2002) and Cretaceous/Tertiary (~65 Ma; Alvarez et al. 1980) boundaries. Today astronomers can detect and predict the orbits of the asteroids/comets that can cause similar impacts. Yet, Tunguska, Me- teor Crater-size and smaller meteorites that could cause local disasters are unforesee- able. However, while planning to avoid the next bombardment by cosmic bodies we can look at past interactions of human societies, environment and meteorite impacts to understand to what extent human cultures were influenced by meteorite impacts. The question is whether the past examples are relevant in the modern situation, but they are certainly useful. The Kaali crater field in Estonia, in that respect, is an excel- lent case study area for past human–meteorite interactions. Moreover, Kaali is not the only Holocene crater field in this region: in fact, during the last 10 000 years Estonia has been targeted at least by four crater forming impacts and there are five registered meteorite falls (Fig. 15.1). The two large craters, Neugrund and Kärdla, originate from 535 and 455 Ma, respectively (Suuroja and Suuroja 2000). The role of earth sciences combined with other natural sciences and archaeology in meteorite impact research is mainly to study the physical record of (pre)historic impacts (cratering), the evi- dence for past effects on biological organisms (extinction and disturbance events), causal effects of the impact such as the impact created tsunami damages and human cultures. The latter issue in Estonia is somewhat difficult to evaluate directly as unfor- tunately the possible people witnessing the Kaali impact were illiterate and there is no direct written record of the impact event, although there is a variety of indirect archaeological and oral material present. Considering that the Kaali meteorite im- pact had a wider reverberation in the contemporary world we may argue that some of the much-quoted early European written records possibly describe the event. There are many ways a meteorite impact can influence societies, including changes in climate, tsunamis, earthquakes, wildfires, acid rain, greenhouse effects, the intensity of which depends on the size and target of the impact and the distance from it. But in the long run there are basically two options: (1) by extermination, and (2) when the impact is smaller by utilisation and worship. From the past, though, we seek the signal