European Journal of Archaeology 17 (3) 2014, 369–406 The Second Phase of the Trypillia Mega-Site Methodological Revolution: A New Research Agenda JOHN CHAPMAN1,MIKHAIL YU VIDEIKO2,DUNCAN HALE1,BISSERKA GAYDARSKA1, NATALIA BURDO2,KNUT RASSMANN3,CARSTEN MISCHKA4,JOHANNES MÜLLER4, ALEKSEY KORVIN-PIOTROVSKIY2 AND VOLODYMYR KRUTS2 1Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK 2Institute of Archaeology, Ukraine 3Romano-German Commission, Germany 4Institute of Prehistory, Christian-Albrechts University, Germany The first phase of the Trypillia mega-sites’ methodological revolution began in 1971 with aerial photography, magnetic prospection, and archaeological excavations of huge settlements of hundreds of hectares belonging to the Trypillia culture in Ukraine. Since 2009, we have created a second phase of the methodological revolution in studies of Trypillia mega-sites, which has provided more significant advances in our understanding of these large sites than any other single research development in the last three decades, thanks partly to the participation of joint Ukrainian-foreign teams. In this paper, we outline the main aspects of the second phase, using examples from the Anglo-Ukrainian project ‘Early urbanism in prehistoric Europe: the case of the Trypillia mega-sites’, working at Nebelivka (also spelled ‘Nebilivka’), and the Ukrainian-German project ‘Economy, demography and social space of Trypillia mega-sites’, working at Taljanky (‘Talianki’), Maydanetske (‘Maydanetskoe’), and Dobrovody, as well as the smaller site at Apolianka. Keywords: mega-site, Trypillia, archaeological method, settlement, houses INTRODUCTION 1991), the current and widespread view is that the earliest towns in Europe date to The fundamental archaeological approach the Aegean Bronze Age in the late third to the origins of urbanism was developed and second millennia BC—the towns of by Childe (1928), who combined evol- the Minoans and Myceneans. This view ution with diffusionism in his view that has consistently ignored the development prehistoric European social complexity was of Trypillia sites in Eastern Europe, the secondary to that of the Near East. While largest of which are as large as the Early pristine urbanism in regions other than Bronze period I city of Uruk (Mesopota- Western Asia has been accepted for the mia). It is particularly curious that Far East, Egypt, Meso- and South Trypillia mega-sites have been so persist- America (Claessen & van der Velde, ently overlooked despite Fletcher’s (1995: © European Association of Archaeologists 2014 MORE OpenChoice articles are open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 3.0 DOI 10.1179/1461957114Y.0000000062 Manuscript received 24 October 2013, Downloaded fromaccepted https://www.cambridge.org/core 17 March 2014, revised. 19IP address: February 170.106.33.14 2014 , on 28 Sep 2021 at 22:39:45, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1179/1461957114Y.0000000062 370 European Journal of Archaeology 17 (3) 2014 198–200) observation, almost twenty years millennium or more earlier in most other ago, that they were the only global excep- regions of South East Europe (Figure 1). tions to his agrarian settlement limits, or Although Gordon Childe introduced Try- even despite Narr’s (1975: 212–28) inte- pillia (as ‘Tripolye’) to mainstream gration of them into his handbook of Anglophone archaeology in the 1920s prehistoric archaeology. After all, the (Childe, 1928), the publication of most mega-sites date to the Trypillia BII—CI site monographs and articles in local phases (c. 4000–3200 BC). languages has limited knowledge and the Although Ukrainian archaeologists have impact of Trypillian discoveries to a small used the provocative term ‘proto-urban’ for group of specialists. Moreover, there has the mega-sites (Shmaglij et al., 1973; been a lack of interest in areas on the per- Videiko, 2004), there has been a sceptical iphery of Gimbutas’ (1974) ‘Old Europe’. response to this claim by many other pre- This has led to the neglect of the most historians, who observe the lack of striking aspect of Trypillian practices—the impressive public buildings and obvious development of a series of mega-sites, cov- wealth differentials (e.g. Masson, 1980; ering 200–340 ha, which are the largest Zbenovich, 1989; Monah, 2003; Kruts sites in 4th millennium Europe and as et al., 2005; cf. reply by Videiko, 2007). large as the Early Bronze Age city of Uruk It is clear that the Trypillia phenom- (Mesopotamia). The sheer size of these enon is such an unusual development that ‘mega-sites’ not only prompts questions of it merits a fresh assessment in the context the complexity of social structure(s) of wider Eurasian prehistoric trends necessary to sustain such settlements, and towards urbanism. In this article, we the logistics and long-term planning outline the most dramatic methodological needed to provision them, but also makes breakthrough in Trypillia studies in its them very hard to investigate. four decades of research (Videiko, 2012). This review of past research begins with The second phase of the so-called ‘Trypil- methodological considerations, before lia methodological revolution’ provides moving on to the social interpretations of many new opportunities to understand the the mega-sites and the research response phenomenon of the mega-sites. It is the from the late 2000s. Since 1971, in the aim of this article to summarize the new first phase of the methodological revolu- data and discuss its potential for advancing tion, mega-sites have been studied using our understanding of these large but still three methods. Remote sensing (aerial misunderstood settlements. photographs and magnetometry) has given an impression of settlement plans, although without much detail (Shishkin, RESEARCH BACKGROUND 1973; Shmaglij et al., 1973). Archaeologi- cal excavations have provided information The Trypillia—Cucuteni culture of about the structure and architecture of the Ukraine, Moldova, and North East buildings and settlements, as well as good Romania (5000–2700 BC) has been termed data for the internal chronology of the ‘the last great Chalcolithic civilization of mega-sites based on pottery typology Europe’ (Mantu et al., 1997)—a late flow- (Ryzhov, 1990; Shmaglij & Videiko, ering of ‘Old Europe’ at a time when 1990). However, after several decades of settled village life, advances in gold and excavation, Ukrainian colleagues are cur- copper metallurgy and vivid and varied rently unable to sequence the houses on a material culture had come to an end a single mega-site by scientific dating, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 22:39:45, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1179/1461957114Y.0000000062 Chapman et al. – The Second Phase of the Trypillia Mega-Site Methodological Revolution 371 Figure 1. Location map of Trypillia—Cucuteni groups, with key-sites prospected by Ukrainian researchers and the Frankfurt/Kiel team: 1 − 7, Stajky (ur. Charkove), Vasylynšyn Jar (Grebeny), Vynogradnoe (Grebeny), Jancǎ 1 + 2; Popovka Levada; 8, Kurjacě Polé (Jušky); 9, Grygoryvka (ur.Chatyšce);̌ 10, Ržijšcev̌ (Chomyne); 11, Jujšky (ur. Žuravka); 12, Konovka (Ukraina); 13, Brin- zeny Ostrov; 14, Trifanešty; 15, Putinešty; 16, Ivanovka; 17, Starye Raduljani II; 18, Glavan 1; 19, Glavan (Sof´ja 2a); 20, Lamojna 1; 21, Petreni; 22, Mogyĺna 3; 23, Glybocok;̌ 24, Fedorovka (Mychajlovka); 25, Yatranivka (Jatranovka); 26, Jampoĺ; 27, Mošurov 1 (early); 27, Mošurov 1 (late); 28, Maydanetske; 29, Taljanky; 30, Oĺkhovets; 31, Apolianka; 32, Dobrovody; 33, Ochiul Alb; 34, Koban; 35, Horodka; 36, Ruginoasa; 37, Singereni; 38, Poduri; 39, Prohezesti; 40, Rapa Morii; 41, Nebelivka. despite recent attempts using radiocarbon information needs further precision, not dates from Taljanky (Rassamakin & least due to varying building density) and Menotti, 2011), Vesely Kut, or all mega- hinders attempts to elucidate the sequence sites (Rassamakin, 2012; Videiko, 2013: of mega-site growth, floruit, and collapse. 115–28). The difficulties of creating Although they do enable us to approxi- radiocarbon-based internal micro- mate the dimensions of population size, chronologies may, however, be more the new robust settlement maps resulting related to choice of samples rather than from our recent geomagnetic prospection the method itself. These problems can be clearly cannot yet be used for precise limiting for a precise reconstruction of the demographic modelling. However, we can population size at any given phase of the currently neither place mega-sites in a site occupation (while the total size of micro-regional or regional settlement the settlement gives broad indications for context nor understand their human house numbers and population size, such impact on the forest steppe landscape. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 28 Sep 2021 at 22:39:45, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1179/1461957114Y.0000000062 372 European Journal of Archaeology 17 (3) 2014 In terms of social interpretations of basis of the early remote sensing plans, these massive sites, they were initially not Fletcher (1995) found that the Trypillia perceived as anything out of the ordinary, mega-sites were the only