The early civilizations of Europe: Cucuteni-Trypillian 4800-3000 BC (Old Europe)

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• published: 17 Oct 2015
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture#Chronology The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture (known as Cucuteni in Romanian and Trypilska Трипільська in Ukrainian), is a Neolithic–Eneolithic archaeological culture (ca. 4800 to 3000 BC) in Eastern Europe. It extends from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions, centered on modern-day Moldova and covering substantial parts of western Ukraine and northeastern Romania, encompassing an area of some 350,000 km2 (140,000 sq mi), with a diameter of some 500 km (300 mi; roughly from Kyiv in the northeast to Brasov in the southwest). The majority of Cucuteni-Trypillian settlements consisted of high-density, small settlements (spaced 3 to 4 kilometers apart), concentrated mainly in the Siret, Prut, and Dniester river valleys. During the Middle Trypillia phase (ca. 4000 to 3500 BC), populations belonging to the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture built the largest settlements in Neolithic Europe, some of which contained as many as 1,600 structures. One of the most notable aspects of this culture was the periodic destruction of settlements, with each single-habitation site having a roughly 60 to 80 year lifetime. The purpose of burning these settlements is a subject of debate among scholars; some of the settlements were reconstructed several times on top of earlier habitational levels, preserving the shape and the orientation of the older buildings. One particular location, the Poduri site (Romania), revealed thirteen habitation levels that were constructed on top of each other over many years. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture flourished in the territory of what is now Moldova, northeastern Romania and parts of Western, Central and Southern Ukraine. The culture thus extended northeast from the Danube River Basin around the Iron Gates gorge to the Black Sea and Dnieper River. It encompassed the central Carpathian Mountains as well as the plains, steppe and forest steppe on either side of the range. Its historical core lay around the middle to upper Dniester River (the Podolian Upland). During the Atlantic and Subboreal climatic periods in which the culture flourished, Europe was at its warmest and moistest since the end of the last Ice Age, creating favorable conditions for agriculture in this region. As of 2003, about 3,000 cultural sites have been identified, ranging from small villages to "vast settlements consisting of hundreds of dwellings surrounded by multiple ditches". The roots of Cucuteni-Trypillian culture can be found in the Starčevo-Körös-Criș and Vinča cultures of the 6th to 5th millennia, with additional influence from the Bug-Dniester culture (6500-5000 BC). During the early period of its existence (in the 5th millennium BC), the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture was also influenced by the Linear Pottery culture from the north, and by the Boian-Giulesti culture from the south. Through colonization and acculturation from these other cultures, the formative Pre-Cucuteni/Trypillia...... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture#Chronology