FAILED URBANIZATION OF THE EUROPEAN CHALCOLITHIC TRYPILLIAN “MEGA-SITES” CONTEXTUALIZED
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-12-01

Trypillian “mega-sites” have experienced a renewed interest in recent years. The interpretation of these sites in terms of their urban character is however heavily disputed depending on the theoretical and disciplinary background of scholars. Even when the urbanity is refuted, their formation and abandonment depict an important step towards Eurasian urbanization. Results of the past years allow us to trace the development and decline of “mega-sites” on a settlement and regional scale. Surveys on a variety of Trypillian sites, ranging from a few to hundreds of hectares revealed an overarching layout. This settlement pattern shows several levels of spatial organization reaching from neighborhoods to quarters, areas of craft production, and large plazas with special buildings comparable to the “mega-structure” of Nebelivka. While smaller sites have the same circo-radial layout, they seem to lack production areas, making them an interesting case to discuss rural-urban relations. A comparison of the structure and partitioning of larger and smaller sites revealed a “top-down” pattern which seems connected to synoecism. The social impact of population agglomerations becomes also apparent in the material culture. Here, naturalistic figurines depicting “the rise of the individual” and tokens referring to anonymous trust exchange systems give a glimpse at a developing urban way of life. Besides agro-pastoral limitations and changing environments, failure of social integration might have ended further development in the mid-fourth millennium. Various theoretical and methodological approaches towards urbanization processes, including non-eurocentristic ones, will be discussed to put these sites into an overarching context.


Author(s): Ohlrau, René (Kiel University, Graduate School „Human Development in Landscapes“) - Hofmann, Robert - Müller, Johannes (Kiel University, Institute for Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology; Kiel University, CRC 1266: „Scales of Transformation - Human-Environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies“)