6, 000-Year-Old European Neolithic House Reconstruction And Extraordinary Practice of House Burning Inhabitants of Old Europe ( Cucuteni-Trypillian, Starčevo, Vinča......) lived in large villages. They built their homes like this, with defensive walls. And in the center - a circle. It was a kind of an arena where they organized different activities. They also kept the sacred bulls there. For archaeologists, these old stones and ceramics are a language that speaks volumes about the past. Judging by the remains, there was an orange clay furnace here. In a Cucuteni-Trypillian home it occupies a significant part of the house. And these shards are the remains of ancient pottery. Cucuteni/Trypillia [7500-4750 years ago] was an extensive cultural area in Romania and northward into Ukraine and Moldova. These late neolithic Europeans built a towns of up to 15,000 people, and many villages and hamlets. The houses in the towns were built in concentric circles around a commons. These brightly decorated wattle-and-daub structures sometimes had two and three stories. Log houses and underground dwellings were also built. Large amounts of beautiful pottery have been found, and many clay female figurines. They invented the potter's wheel and the vertical two-chamber kiln. The Cucuteni farmed but also hunted and gathered in the surrounding forests and steppes. Some of their pottery is marked with symbols suggestive of writing. There is no evidence of warfare for most of that time; only in its later period fortifications and weapons were found. These may have protected against wild animals, but there was also a violent culture associated with sacrificial mass graves and hill forts called kurgans that eventually moved closer from the east, and may have put pressure on the Cucuteni, along with climatic vagaries and environmental degradation. The Cucuteni would burn down their Houses periodically and move; it is assumed this was for religious reasons, but perhaps they discovered that it was healthier for them to burn the accumulated filth and start over on fresh ground. Needless to say, this resettlement pattern, combined with clearings for farmland, was hard on the land. The Cucuteni were master potters, weavers and knitters, and cared a great deal about beauty in the objects they created. They were so fond of their houses they left clay models of them. Their sensible dependence on both foraging and cultivation, along with craft and trade, brought them prosperity. It is thought by some that the larger houses were really house-shrines. Graves were not richly endowed. Women's graves often contained red ochre, sometimes beads, figurines and tools. It must have been a pleasant and creative place to live. Unfortunately the areas have not been investigated for a long time. Latest archeological methods will disclose many more details about the lives of these esthetically gifted people. The study of the extraordinary practice of routine house burning of the Old Europe Civilizations provides important insights into the early history of Europe. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, which existed in the present-day southeastern European nations of Romania, Moldova and Ukraine during the Neolithic Age and Copper Age, from approximately 5500 to 2750 BC, left behind thousands of settlement ruins containing a wealth of archaeological artifacts attesting to their cultural and technological characteristics.[1] Refer to the main article for a general description of this culture; this article deals with its house burning practice. Contents Repetitive settlement burnings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_burning_of_the_Cucuteni%E2%80%93Trypillian_culture Criş culture Bulgaria, Moldavia, Serbia, Wallachia 5900 to 4750 BC Starčevo culture northwest Bulgaria, Kosovo, Serbia, Drina Valley in Southwest Srpska Republic, southern Vojvodina, 5750 to 5250 BC Dudeşti culture southeast Muntenia 5500 to 5250 BC Vinča culture Serbia, Transylvania 5500 to 4000 BC Szakálhát group southern Hungary, Vojvodina, northern Transylvania 5260 to 4880 BC Boian culture northern Bulgaria, Muntenia, southeast Transylvania 5250 to 4400 BC Tisza culture Hungary, Moldavia, Slovakia, Transylvania, western Ukraine, Vojvodina 4880 to 4400 BC Gumelniţa-Karanovo culture eastern Wallachia, northern Dobruja 4400 to 3800 BC Bubanj-Sălcuţa-Krivodol group northwestern Bulgaria, Oltenia, southern Serbia 4300 to 3800 BC. Cucuteni-Trypillian culture Romania, Moldavia, Western Ukraine to Dnieper River 4800 to 3200 BC.

• published: 27 Jan 2014
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