The Cucuteni culture, better known in the countries of the former Soviet Union as Trypillian culture or Tripolie culture, is a late Neolithic archaeological culture that flourished between ca. 5500 BC and 2750 BC in the Dniester-Dnieper region of modern-day Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.
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Nomenclature
The culture was named after Cucuteni, Iaşi county, Romania, where the first objects associated with this culture were discovered in 1884 and excavations started in 1909. In 1897, similar objects were excavated in Trypillia (Трипiлля; Russian: Tripolye), Kiev Governorate, Ukraine. As a result, the culture has been known in Soviet, Russian, and Ukrainian publications as Tripolie culture or Tripolian culture. A compromise name is Cucuteni-Trypillia.
Extent
As of 2003, about 2000 sites of Trypillian culture have been identified in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. 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 comprised of hundreds of dwellings surrounded by multiple ditches" (Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture). There were cities with 10-15,000 citizens in the Tripolye culture. It was centered on the middle to upper Dniester River (in the present-day Republic of Moldova) with an extension in the northeast to as far as the Dnieper.
Features
The largest collection of artifacts from the Cucuteni-Trypollia culture can be found in museums in Russia, Ukraine, and Romania, including the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the Museum of History & Archaeology in Piatra Neamţ.
The Cucuteni culture has been called the first urban culture in Europe. The Trypollia settlements were usually located on a plateau, fortified with earthworks and ditches. The earliest villages consisted of ten to fifteen households. In their heyday, settlements expanded to include several hundred large adobe huts, sometimes with two stories. These houses were typically warmed by an oven and had round windows.
Agriculture is attested to, as well as livestock-raising, mainly consisting of cattle, but goats/sheep and swine are also evidenced. Wild game is a regular part of the faunal remains. The pottery is connected to the Linear Pottery culture. Copper was extensively imported from the Balkans. Extant figurines excavated at the Cucuteni sites are thought to represent the Mother goddess.
See also
References
J. P. Mallory, "Tripolye Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
