Cucuteni-Tripolye

circa 4100 to 3300 BCE

The Cucuteni-Tripolye inhabited the fertile soils of modern Ukraine and Moldova on the black sea. The same soils that later fed the Classical Greeks.

The Cucuteni-Tripolye had cities, not "mega-sites"

Archeologists have uncovered a number of cities including Taljanky, Maidenetske, and Nebelivka. Nebelivka is of similar time and scale as the largest Mesopotamian cities, like Uruk.

Archeologists have called them "mega-sites" instead of cities because they lack central organization, contained food-production, and were used seasonally. But this is circular reasoning. Instead, our lesson from these ruins should be that big cities don't need hierarchy.

Nebelivka had planning without plans

Nebelivka was unplanned, but patterns in street design and home layout reflect some clear shared understandings.

Houses were generally arranged in circles. We might infer something about the social arrangements from this design choice.

We know that in the Basque region of Spain, houses are arranged in circles so that no one is first or last. The Basques also use house order to arrange cycles of mutual aid. This circlular design allows math, rather than central administration, to provide mutual aid. Bread flows left. Death benefits go left.

Nebelivka houses also shared similar structures, but had individualized floor plans and adaptations. Skillful designs and pottery suggest that each house was like a little artists collective. The pottery also features a variety of female forms, suggesting that women held prominent roles in society.

Small-scale urban farming produced surplus without being captured by an elite

Nebelivka relied on a mix of small-scale urban farming, semi-cultivated orchards, livestock, hunting, and foraging. This produced a clear surplus, but no evidence of elites or war. Thus disproving Turgot's theory of Technological determinism.

The evidence from Nebelivka and others suggests that agriculture first emerged within cities; rather than cities emerging when people concentrated around agriculture.

Kurgan invasion ends the idyllic peace

The Cucuteni-Tripolye were likely conquered by a Kurgan invasion.

The first scholar to propose this was Marija Gimbutas. Newer DNA analysis shows that Gimbutas was correct about the timing and geography of this Kurgan invasion.

The Kurgan were named after their burial mounds, which featured male warriors with gold and weapons and sacrificial offerings (including sacrificed people). They were cattle-herders from the Pontic steppe, north of the Black Sea. They brought violence, patriarchy, warrior leadership, and the Indo-European language group.