The Origins of Trypillia Megasites

Abstract

The Trypillia megasites of Ukraine are the largest known settlements in 4th millennium BC Europe and possibly the world. With the largest reaching 320 ha in size, megasites pose a serious question about the origins of such massive agglomerations. Most current solutions assume maximum occupation, with all houses occupied at the same time, and target defence against other agglomerations as the cause of their formation. However, recent alternative views of megasites posit smaller long-term occupations or seasonal assembly places, creating a settlement rather than military perspective on origins. Shukurov et al. (2015)'s model of Trypillia arable land-use demonstrates that subsistence stresses begin when site size exceeded 35 ha. Over half of the sites dated to the Trypillia BI stage-the stage before the first megasites-were larger than 35 ha, suggesting that some form of buffering involving exchange of goods for food was in operation. There were two settlement responses to buffering:-clustering of sites with enhanced inter-site exchange networks and the creation of megasites. The trend to increased site clustering can be seen from Phase BI to CI, coeval with the emergence of megasites. We can therefore re-focus the issue of origins on why create megasites in site clusters. In this article, we discuss the two strategies in terms of informal network analysis and suggest reasons why, in some cases, megasites developed in certain site clusters. Finally, we consider the question of whether Trypillia megasites can be considered as "cities."

On the chronology of the Sabatynivka group of the Cucuteni-Trypillia cultural complex (Central Ukraine)

“…However, the timespan cited above was significantly older than other dates which were made on the samples coming from the sites of analogous chronological position (Cucuteni A) from Romania and Moldova. Recently, the period Trypillia B1 was often dated to 4600-4050 BC (Mischka et al 2016(Mischka et al [2019; Chapman et al 2019) or 4600-4200 BC (Müller and Rassmann 2016).…”

“…In the last decade, new research has been shedding more light on the prehistory of Central Ukraine. The international projects aimed at the excavations and surveys of Trypillian mega-sites have produced considerable information about this region (Videiko et al 2015;Müller et al 2018;Chapman et al 2019;Hofmann et al 2019;Gaydarska et al 2020). On the other hand, the phenomenon of Trypillian mega-sites will remain isolated without a detailed study of the previous stages of the development of the Trypillian culture.…”

Eco-Cultural Niche Breadth and Overlap Within the Cucuteni–Trypillia Culture Groups During the Eneolithic

“…However, there is a higher probability of occupying the eastern steppe territories between the Middle Dnieper basin and Black Sea lowlands (Figure 7). These results have significant implications for understanding the geographical range and distribution of the last great Chalcolithic society of Old Europe (Chapman et al, 2019).…”

“…In order to identify the links among archaeological settlement placement, human adaptive systems, and the ecological niches exploited by prehistoric populations during the Eneolithic, a geodatabase was created using Esri ArcGIS 10.6 based on field surveys-only in Romania (Mihu-Pintilie and Nicu, 2019), along with relevant archaeological documentation and registries-for the entire study area (Harper et al, 2019). We only used the CTU settlements where independent archaeological documentation was well-grounded in reports, scientific publications (e.g., articles, supplementary material, and data in journal articles), radiocarbon-based chronology, and georeferenced archeological maps (Nikitin et al, 2010;Diachenko and Menotti, 2012;Brigan andWeller, 2013, 2018;Chapman et al, 2014;Chapman et al, 2019;Harper et al, 2019;Mihu-Pintilie and Nicu, 2019). The main source for CTU sites located outside the Romanian territory was the Eastern European Neo-Eneolithic Sites Repository (EENSR) version 1.0 database, published for the first time by Harper et al (2019), which contains information about more than 8,000 Neo-Eneolithic sites.…”

“…This is also the case in the current territories of Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine, where the entire geographic area has a high density of Eneolithic archaeological sites corresponding to Precucuteni/Cucuteni (in Romania and Moldova) and Trypillia (in Ukraine) culture or Cucuteni-Trypillia cultural unity (CTU), together known as the last great Chalcolithic society of Old Europe (cal. 5,400/5,300-2,800/2,700 BCE) (Gimbutas, 1974;Monah and Monah, 1997;Chapman et al, 2019) (Figure 1). However, by constructing, characterizing, and comparing the niche breadth of CTU groups, we aimed to test for ECNM applicability, contributing to a broader perspective on the ecological adaptation and spatiotemporal dynamics inside the most representative culture of Old Europe.…”