Abstract
Recently, high-resolution magnetometry surveys have led to the discovery of a special category of buildings–so-called ‘mega-structures’–situated in highly visible positions in the public space of Tripolye giant-settlements of the late 5th and first half of the 4th millennium BCE. In this paper we explore what these buildings actually are and how they can contribute to the understanding of the development of social space in Tripolye giant-settlements. For this investigation, we linked newly obtained excavation data from the giant-settlement Maidanetske, Ukraine, with a much larger sample of such buildings from magnetic plans obtained in the region between the Carpathian foothills and the Dnieper River. Accordingly, Tripolye mega-structures represent a particular kind of integrative building documented in many non-ranked ethnographic contexts. Based on our results we are interpreting that these buildings were used for various ritual and non-ritual activities, joint decision-making, and the storage and consumption of surplus. In Tripolye giant-settlements at least three different categories of mega-structures could be identified which most likely represent different levels of socio-political integration and decision-making. The emergence of this hierarchical system of high-level integrative buildings for the whole community and different low-level integrative architectures for certain segments of local communities was related to the rise of Tripolye mega-sites. The presence of different integrative levels most likely reflects the fusion of different previously independent communities in the giant-settlements. Later in the mega-site development, we observe how low-level integrative buildings increasingly lose their importance indicated by shrinking size and, finally, their disappearance. This observation might indicate that the power which was previously distributed across the community was transferred to a central institution. It is argued that the non-acceptance of this concentration of power and the decline of lower decision-making levels might be a crucial factor for the disintegration of Tripolye giant-settlements around 3600 BCE.
Highlights
Between ca. 4100–3600 BCE ‘giant-settlements’ or ‘mega-sites’ with thousands of houses arranged in a very specific centripetal layout emerged in a concentrated area of the Southern Bug-Dnieper Interfluve in the eastern part of the Tripolye distribution area (Fig 1)
Empirical anthropological research suggests that additional political institutions become necessary with rising population sizes in order to manage increased social complexity and scalar stress in large population agglomerations [15, 16]
The question arises how might these large Chalcolithic settlements have been organised in socio-political terms? While evolutionary-thinking authors assume a strong correlation between population sizes, organisational complexity, and social stratification [17], other authors stress that group size alone represents an insufficient criterion to predict social organisation
Summary
Between ca. 4100–3600 BCE ‘giant-settlements’ or ‘mega-sites’ with thousands of houses arranged in a very specific centripetal layout emerged in a concentrated area of the Southern Bug-Dnieper Interfluve in the eastern part of the Tripolye distribution area (Fig 1). 4100–3600 BCE ‘giant-settlements’ or ‘mega-sites’ with thousands of houses arranged in a very specific centripetal layout emerged in a concentrated area of the Southern Bug-Dnieper Interfluve in the eastern part of the Tripolye distribution area (Fig 1). These unique settlements are the focus of different international projects [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Different modes of human cooperation have to be considered [18, 19] Both archaeologists [20] and ethnographers [21, 22] have described the many possibilities of social organization from non-stratified to stratified societies existing independently from demographic, economic, and technological preconditions
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