Skip to content

VITA ANTIQUA,     ISSN 2522-9419 (Online), 2519-4542 (Print)
Center for Paleoethnological Research

VITA ANTIQUA 10, 2018, Prehistoric Networks in Southern and Eastern Europe, 146-154
Tripolye – Strategy and Results of an ongoing Ukrainian-European Project
Hofmann Robert¹, Shatilo Mila¹, Ohlrau René¹, Dal Corso Marta¹, Dreibrodt Stefan², Videiko Mikhailo³, Rassmann Knutº, Kirleis Wiebke¹, Müller Johannes¹
¹ Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, Kiel University
² Institute for Ecosystem Research, Kiel University;
³ Research Laboratory of Archaeology, Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University
º Roman Germanic Commission, German Archaeological Institute

DOI:10.37098/2519-4542-2018-1-10-146-154
https://doi.org/10.37098/2519-4542-2018-1-10-146-154

ABSTRACT

Tripolye is the label of a very long-lasting and geographically widespread cultural complex of the Eneolithic of South-East and Eastern Europe. A joint Ukrainian-German research project has covered many aspects of Tripolye settlement systems and environmental conditions since 2011 (funded by the German Research Foundation and the Ukrainian Academy of Science; project directors: Johannes Müller, Kiel University and Mihailo Videiko, currently Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University).

The aim of the article is to identify the main tasks, strategies and some results of an ongoing Ukrainian-European Project that is dealing with the Tripolye culture phenomenon. In order to investigate emergence and decline of giant-settlements with thousands of houses and very specific spatial layouts, the challenge need to be mastered to perform representative archaeological and scientific sampling with reasonable efforts. This is only possible through the combination of non-destructive survey techniques, targeted archaeological excavations and the application of modern scientific methods. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the social, ecological, demographic and economic dimensions of such settlements and underlying transformations of human societies also in their regional variability, the consideration of different spatial investigation levels is required. In the first phases of the project, high-resolution magnetic surveys were applied to different large Tripolye settlements and exemplary investigations were carried out at the local scale of the Maidanetske settlement. At the current stage of the project, the studies focus more on the meso-and macro-regional level.

Currently, increased effort is made to understand the societal dynamics behind the emergence and the decline of singular Eneolithic mega-sites of the late 5th and the 4th millennium BCE which were situated in the Ukrainian forest steppe zone.

Key words: Tripolye, Eneolithic, mega-sites, research-strategy, magnetic survey, spatial scales

Language: English

PDF:DOWNLOAD DOWNLOAD

UDK: 903’13(4-11)”636”