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Geography

Members of this culture belonged to tribal social groups, scattered over an area of southeast Europe encompassing territories in present-day Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. The important physical features of the land were rolling plains, river valleys, the Black Sea, and the Carpathian Mountains, which were covered by a mixed forest in the west, that gave way to the open grasslands of the steppes in the east. The climate during the time that this culture flourished has been named the Holocene climatic optimum, and featured cool, wet winters and warm, moist summers. These conditions would have created a very favorable climate for agriculture in this region.

As of 2003, about 3000 sites of Cucuteni-Trypillian culture have been identified. J. P. Mallory reports that the "…culture is attested from well over a thousand sites in the form of everything from small villages to vast settlements consisting of hundreds of dwellings surrounded by multiple ditches."

Settlements

In terms of overall size, some of Cucuteni-Trypillian sites, such as Talianki (with a population of 15,000 and covering an area of some 450 hectares – 1100 acres) in the province of Uman Raion, Ukraine, are as large as (or perhaps even larger than) the more famous city-states of Sumer in the Fertile Crescent, and these Eastern European settlements predate the Sumerian cities by more than half of a millennium.

Archaeologists have uncovered an astonishing wealth of artifacts from these ancient ruins. The largest collections of Cucuteni-Trypillian artifacts are to be found in museums in Russia, Ukraine, and Romania, including the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the Archaeology Museum Piatra Neamţ in Romania. However, smaller collections of artifacts are kept in many local museums scattered throughout the region.

These settlements underwent periodical acts of destruction and re-creation, as they were burned and then rebuilt every 60–80 years. Some scholars have theorized that the inhabitants of these settlements believed that every house symbolized an organic, almost living, entity. Each house, including its ceramic vases, ovens, figurines and innumerable objects made of perishable materials, shared the same circle of life, and all of the buildings in the settlement were physically linked together as a larger symbolic entity. As with living beings, the settlements may have been seen as also having a life cycle of death and rebirth.

The houses of the Cucuteni-Trypillian settlements were constructed in several general ways:

Wattle and daub homes.

Log homes, called (Ukrainian: ïëîùàäêè ploščadki).

Semi-underground homes called Bordei.

Some Cucuteni-Trypillian homes were two-storeys tall, and evidence shows that the members of this culture sometimes decorated the outsides of their homes with many of the same red-ochre complex swirling designs that are to be found on their pottery. Most houses had thatched roofs and wooden floors covered with clay.



Diet

Cucuteni-Trypillian sites have yielded substantial evidence to prove that the inhabitants practiced agriculture, raised domestic livestock, and hunted wild animals for food. Archaeological evidence also indicates that primitive plowing was done by the farmers of the Cucuteni-Trypillian settlements. Cultivating the soil, tending livestock, and harvesting the crops were probably the main occupations of most of the members of this society. There is also evidence that they may have raised bees. Although wine grapes were cultivated by these people, there is no solid evidence to date to prove that they actually made wine from them. The cereal grains were ground and baked as unleavened bread in clay ovens or on heated stones in the hearth fireplace in the house.

The archaeological remains of animals found at Cucuteni-Trypillian sites indicate that the inhabitants practiced animal husbandry. The remains of dogs have also been found. Archaeologists have uncovered both the remains as well as artistic depictions of the horse in Cucuteni-Trypillian sites. However, whether these finds were of domesticated or wild horses is a matter of some debate.

In addition to farming and raising livestock, members of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture supplemented their diet with hunting. They used traps to catch their prey, as well as various weapons, including the bow-and-arrow, the spear, and clubs. To help them in stalking game, they sometimes disguised themselves with camouflage.


Date: 2015-01-02; view: 967


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