Decline and end

There continues to be a debate among scholars regarding how the end of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture took place. It begins with the influential Kurgan hypothesis (also theory or model), proposed by Marija Gimbutas in 1956, which focuses on early Indo-European origins. This theory combined archaeology with linguistics, and postulated that the people of an archaeological Kurgan culture (a term grouping the Pit Grave culture and its predecessors) in the Pontic steppe were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language.

Gimbutas proposed the theory that the expansions of the Kurgan culture was a series of essentially hostile military conquest undertaken by the patriarchal, warlike Kurgan culture over the peaceful, matriarchal cultures of "Old Europe", a process visible in the appearance of fortified settlements and hillforts and the graves of warrior-chieftains:

"The process of Indo-Europeanization was a cultural, not a physical, transformation. It must be understood as a military victory in terms of successfully imposing a new administrative system, language, and religion upon the indigenous groups."

The Kurgan Hypothesis holds that this violent conquest would have taken place during the Third Wave of Kurgan expansion, between 3000-2800 B.C.

However, in the 1980s another theory, using more current archaeological evidence as support, appeared that contradicted Gimbutas' Kurgan Hypothesis. In 1989 Irish-American archaeologist J.P. Mallory published a groundbreaking book called In Search of the Indo-Europeans, in which he used the data from archaeological sites in the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture's region to demonstrate that part of the Kurgan culture (which he refers to by their more accepted name of Yamna culture) established settlements throughout the entire Cucuteni-Trypillian culture's area, and that these two cultures lived side-by-side for over 2000 years of their existence before the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture finally ended. Artifacts from both cultures are found within each of their respective archaeological settlement sites, attesting to an open trade that took place between them.^] Additionally, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture sites during this entire period indicate that there were no weapons found, nor were there indications of violent killings of people that would be commonplace if there had been warfare or raiding taking place. The conclusion that Mallory reached was that there was a gradual transformation that took place, instead of a violent conquest.

Finally, in the 1990s and 2000s, another theory regarding the end of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture emerged based on a devastating climatic change that took place at the end of their culture's existence that is known as the Blytt-Sernander#Sub-Boreal phase. Beginning around 3200 B.C. the earth's climate became colder and drier than it had ever been since the end of the last Ice age, resulting in the worst drought in the history of Europe since the beginning of agriculture. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture relied primarily on farming, which would have collapsed under these climatic conditions in a scenario similar to the Dust Bowl of the American Midwest in the 1930s.

According to The American Geographical Union, "The transition to today's arid climate was not gradual, but occurred in two specific episodes. The first, which was less severe, occurred between 6,700 and 5,500 years ago. The second, which was brutal, lasted from 4,000 to 3,600 years ago. Summer temperatures increased sharply, and precipitation decreased, according to carbon-14 dating. This event devastated ancient civilizations and their socio-economic systems."

However, the neighboring Yamna culture people were pastoralists, and were able to maintain their survival much more effectively in drought conditions. This has led some scholars to come to the conclusion that the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture ended not from a violent military conquest, nor a gradual assimilation, but as a matter of survival, converting from agriculture to pastoralism, and becoming integrated into the Yamna culture.

First people of Ukrainian lands with their authentic self name were Cimmerians (IX-VII BC). The first mention on them in literature traces back to Homer’s “Odissey” , which refers to “the land of Cimmerians” on the northern coast of the Black Sea and in Crimea. Also Herodotus (V BC) mentioned them.

Cimmerians were nomadic people of Indo-European origins. Their language is regarded as related to Iranian. Their culture is identified with the Iron Age in Ukrainian lands. Archeological remains testify the existence of elaborated, well-arranged burial rituals, that allow to mention the existence of religious believes. They believed in afterlife, had a cult of the Mother Goddess, cult of fertility (плодородие) (common for all Indo-European tribes).

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1100