Holy waters of the ancestral homeland of mankind

In the late period, the territory occupied by the Trypillian tribes expanded further. In particular, the arid steppe zone in the south was developed, which naturally led to an increased diversity of economic systems.

In addition to previously cultivated varieties of wheat and barley, the proportion of millet and legumes increased. Plum pits, believed to be a hybrid of cherry plum and apricot brought from Asia Minor, and seeds of large-berry table grapes have been found. Bees were kept. The inhabitants did not suffer from protein deficiency, as they consumed eggs and dairy products.

2.

The Trypillian culture is usually divided into early, middle, and late periods. A key point of contention is how these phases relate to radiocarbon dating data.

The Cucuteni culture in Romania developed from the Precucuteni culture. The following phases of the Precucuteni culture are distinguished:

Precucuteni I (5050-4950 BC)

Precucuteni II (4950-4750 BC)

Precucuteni III (4750-4550 BC)

The following phases of the Cucuteni culture are distinguished. Cucuteni A, Cucuteni AB, Cucuteni B:

Cucuteni A1 (4600-4550 BC)

Cucuteni A2 (4550-4300 BC)

Cucuteni A3 (4300-4150 BC)

Cucuteni A4 (4150-4050 BC)

Cucuteni AB (4050-3775 BC)

Cucuteni B (3775-3500 BC)

Gorodishtea-Foltești (3500-2650 BC)

According to another chronology, the following phases are distinguished:

Cucuteni A (5800-5000 BC)

Cucuteni B (5000-3500 BC) Horodisty-Foltești (3500-3000 BC).

The Trypillian culture in Ukraine is divided into the following phases:

Trypillian A (5800-5000 BC)

Trypillian B (5000-3500 BC)

Trypillian C (3500-3000 BC)

Usatovo culture (3150-2650 BC).

In later times, the Trypillian culture area underwent significant changes, resulting in a sharp decline in the number of sites, especially in the western part of the area. The Balkan "Dark Ages" began. Around 3100 BC, the climate became colder and drier than at any time since the end of the last Ice Age, leading to the worst drought in European history since the dawn of agriculture. The situation was reminiscent of the dust storms in the US Midwest in the 1930s. Under such climatic conditions, the agriculture on which the Trypillian culture relied would have collapsed.

The confusion surrounding the synchronization of Trypillian settlements and the construction of local chronological columns is primarily due to the unsatisfactory state of ceramic typology.

Radiocarbon dates allow for a fairly accurate dating of early period sites. The lower boundary is established by the age of the Linear Pottery culture settlement in Târpești—4220 and 4295 BC. This is supported by a large series of dates for other sites of this culture.

The upper boundary is based on dates obtained for the layer of the late Early Period in Târpești—3580 BC—and in Rusesti Noi—3620 BC.

The existence of Middle Period settlements (Cucuteni A2-A3) dates back to 3675, 3660, 3535, 3490, 3405, 3395, 3360, and 3150 BC.

A comparison of the dates of settlements from the late Early Period and sites from the first half of the Middle Period allows us to consider 3600 BC as the beginning of the Middle Period, and 3400 BC as the end of its first half. The end of the middle period can be considered to be 3250 BC.

Radiocarbon dates rarely correspond to the settlement periodization. For example, the 14 absolute dates obtained for settlements of the A2 phase of the Gumelnitsa culture cover an inordinately long period, from 3915 to 3410 BC. However, judging by the finds of Trypillian ceramics at the Gumelnitsa settlements, the A2 phase corresponds to the end of the early and beginning of the middle periods of the Trypillian-Cucuteni culture. Therefore, dates placed between 3600 and 3450 BC are acceptable and comparable with the dates of the Trypillian settlements.

Several radiocarbon dates have been obtained for settlements of the late Trypillia culture:

3000 BC (Cucuteni B1), 2920, 2840, 2650, 2450, 2425, 2390 BC (Trypillia), and 2380 BC (Usatovo).

This list can be expanded with dates obtained for cultures that were in contact with the Trypillia culture:

Funnelbeaker culture - 2725, 2665 BC.

Globular Amphora culture - 2490, 2240, 2195 BC.

Yamnaya culture - 2380, 2100 BC.

Cernavoda I culture - 2555, 2435, 2310 BC.

Karanovo culture - 2385, 2360 BC.

3.

Approximately 3,000 Trypillian settlements are known in Ukraine. Some settlements have been explored over large areas, while others have been excavated almost entirely. Aerial photographic decipherment in the 1960s revealed the presence of large settlements covering several hundred hectares, containing up to 2,000 dwellings, some of which were two-story. Rectangular (up to 200 square meters), multi-chambered adobe-frame houses (limestone was also used) have been found.

The first settlers of the Upper Olt and Carpathian regions, from whom the Trypillian communities trace their origins, emerged as a society with an established tradition in the construction of settlements, the production of household implements, and methods of agricultural and livestock farming. The agricultural and domestic economy methods they developed were so efficient that they persisted for centuries without significant change. It has been established that settlements of the initial stage of cultural development (Docucuteni 1) were localized within a very small area of southeastern Transylvania and the Eastern Carpathian region, while settlements of the next stage (Docucuteni 2) occupied a vast area from the Eastern Carpathian region to the Middle Dniester region. Almost all communities left Transylvania and settled the fertile lands of the forest-steppe zone from the Siret to the Dniester. The dispersal of sites across this territory indicates that it was not overpopulation that forced people to migrate long distances, but rather an extensive method of agriculture and livestock farming, which necessitated periodic changes of land.

The cultural area had approximately doubled by this time, indicating a fairly rapid process of settlement of Trypillian communities from the Eastern Carpathian region toward the Dniester, and then the Southern Bug.

The early period of the Trypillian culture is characterized by a predominance of small settlements (1-1.5 hectares), small and medium-sized adobe houses, the widespread use of dugouts and semi-dugouts for housing and utility rooms, and the construction of family altars near hearths.

In the middle period of the Trypillian culture (Trypillian B), settlements were located in areas with natural protection. During this stage, settlements fortified with a ditch and rampart (sometimes two) became more common. A ring-shaped (circular) settlement layout with nest-like groupings of dwellings is characteristic. The area of settlements increased to 8, and sometimes to 60 hectares (Veremye, Vladimirovka) and even over 150 hectares (Vesely Kut).

The increase in the number of settlements was associated with an increase in population size and density. The Trypillian tribes continued to disperse further to the northeast, into the Dnieper region and to the southeast. From the mid- to late 4th millennium BC, the Trypillian tribes expanded their territory, inhabiting the Upper Dniester region, the Bug-Dnieper region, and reached the right bank of the Dnieper.

In the late period of the Trypillian culture (Trypillian C), the territory expanded as the tribes advanced north and east. The Trypillians settled the upper reaches of the Pripyat, Sluch, Goryn, and Styr rivers, and in the south, they reached the Black Sea coast. Remote settlements were founded along the Don and Volga rivers. The Trypillian culture occupied a territory equal in size to the Harappan civilization.

During this period, on the left bank of the Dnieper, the Trypillian culture encountered a genetically unrelated, rapidly developing Catacomb culture. This likely contributed to the delay in the further eastward expansion of the Trypillian tribes. It was in the Dnieper region, based on the Late Trypillian foundations, that the Middle Dnieper culture later emerged.

Settlements were located in high, inaccessible areas. Moats and ramparts were not used to fortify the entire settlement, but only a portion of it—the highest point. At the same time, there exist small settlements with irregular development and giant settlements (up to 300-400 hectares) with populations of 10,000-60,000 people, strictly planned (with rings and radii), fortified and unfortified settlements, and one- and two-story houses of medium (40-80 square meters) and large (100-150 square meters) sizes.

The number of 30-40 houses for a small settlement is constant, and based on the calculation of seven people per house, the total population was approximately 500. This is also confirmed by materials from ancient Sumer. The settlement, with a population of tens of thousands of people, was significantly larger in size than any ancient Eastern city.

The subsequent simultaneous decline in the number of settlements, the gradual loss of individual regions by the Trypillian tribes, and other phenomena indicate a growing crisis of sorts in the development of Trypillian society. Most Trypillian settlements were suddenly abandoned; traces of exposure to high temperatures and the presence of a glassy mass are present.

Experiments burning adobe structures have demonstrated the impossibility of reducing the walls to the condition seen in Trypillian structures by a conventional fire lasting many hours. Research by A. Ya. Bryusov (1951) revealed the presence of residual radioactivity in the ruins of Trypillian settlements.

4.

Despite the enormous abundance of settlements and material artifacts of the Trypillian culture, it is virtually devoid of burials. For this reason, the genetics of this culture are poorly studied. American archaeologist Douglas W. Bailey writes: "Cucuteni cemeteries do not exist, and the discovered Trypillian cemeteries belong to a very late period." The anthropological composition of the early Trypillians is unknown due to the lack of skeletal remains.

Perhaps this culture practiced a burial rite in which neither bones nor even ashes were left in the ground. This rite developed precisely in the early Neolithic culture of Anatolia, from which, according to genetic and archaeological data, the Neolithic wave of migration originated, leading to the formation of the agricultural cultures of Southeastern Europe, including the Trypillian culture.

Cemeteries from the early and middle periods of the Trypillian-Cucuteni culture have not yet been discovered. Currently, the only Trypillian site where human remains dating from 3600-2500 BC have been found is Verteba Cave in western Ukraine. This cave was not identified as a Trypillian site.

A 2022 study published in the journal Scientific Reports analyzed DNA samples from Verteba Cave.

Regarding Y-DNA haplogroups, the following were found: G2a2b2a3, G2a2a1, G2a2a1, C1a, E, I2a1a2a-L161.1, I2a2a1, and I2c.

According to mtDNA, the haplogroups are J1c2, K1a2, T2b, H, H5a, H5b, H15a1, H1b, HV, J1c5, K1a, K1a1b1, K1b1, N1a1a1a, T2, T2b, T2c1d1, T4, U5a, U5a2, U8b, W.

This set of markers confirms the kinship of the population of this culture with the peoples of the Balkan Neolithic and Asia Minor. In Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, some carriers of G2a are Kurds. Also in the Caucasus, there are many carriers of G2a, including Ossetians, Circassians, Avars, Lezgins, and Chechens. Haplogroup I2 is concentrated in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia. Haplogroup C1a is present among both Oceania and Siberia. Haplogroup E distinguishes the peoples of East Africa.

All studied samples "are primarily characterized by an ancestral component dominant in Anatolian-Neolithic individuals, suggesting a strong connection with European Neolithic populations. This indicates a common origin with the Baden culture population. Genotypes of local origin associated with Ukrainian Neolithic hunter-gatherers are absent."

Neolithic farmers from Asia Minor brought a set of mitochondrial lineages to Europe: J, T2, HV, and N1a. New haplogroups first appeared in the Balkans, the northern Mediterranean, and the Iberian Peninsula, and then spread to Central and Northern Europe, leading to the gradual disappearance of haplogroup U representatives. By the end of the Neolithic, mitochondrial haplogroup U had virtually disappeared from Europe.

In the Late Period, Trypillians found burials in both kurgan and ground cemeteries. The cemeteries, most often inventory burials, contained the burials of adults and children. Burials were carried out using cremation rites, in urns and, more often, without urns (in pits).

Regarding Y-DNA haplogroups, the following haplogroups were found for the Late Period: Y-chromosomal haplogroup I2a and mitochondrial haplogroups K1a1, 1K1b2, H, T1a, T2c1d1, U4a, and U4b.

Some maternal genetic lineages of the Trypillian population of Podolia originate in Asia Minor. However, the local lineage was found to be predominant in the remains of Trypillians from Podolia. Whether this is also true for other areas of the Trypillian area is unknown due to the lack of genetic material. The anthropological type of the Trypillians is similar to the Mediterranean type, common at the time in the Balkans and the Danube region. However, the craniological material contains evidence of influence from the tribes of the Eastern European steppe region. Differences in the anthropological types of female and male skulls have been identified, which may indicate the mechanical mixing of different ethnic groups.

5.

The cultural, economic, and ethnic ties of the Late Trypillian population with their neighbors determined the significant changes that swept across a significant area of Eastern Europe in the late 4th and first half of the 3rd millennium BC.

This primarily concerns the Trypillians' western connections. During the middle period of the Trypillian culture, contacts with the cultures of the Balkan-Danubian Eneolithic were decisive. In the late period, these cultures ceased to exist, and the entire area of their distribution underwent a dramatic cultural transformation. The Late Trypillian tribes also established contacts with the creators of new cultures in the Lower Danube region and the northern Balkan Peninsula. Of these, the Cernavoda culture was geographically closest to Trypillian culture, belonging to the same circle as cultures such as the Kotsofeni in the Danube region and the Ezero in southern Bulgaria. The appearance of elements common to these cultures in Late Trypillian monuments is characteristic. Connections with the new Balkan-Danubian and Anatolian cultural system resulted in the emergence of a number of distinctive bronze artifacts among the late Trypillians, including the famous Usatov daggers. At the same time, typical Usatov artifacts and entire complexes appear in the Balkan-Danube region and Anatolia.

In the upper Dniester and western Volyn, as far as the left bank of the Vistula, active contacts between the late Trypillian population and the Funnelbeaker culture tribes are recorded.

These contacts were interrupted in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC as a result of the eastward expansion of the Globular Amphora culture tribes, who in turn established contacts with later Trypillian groups, some of whom were displaced by the newcomers, while others continued to exist later.

In the east, contacts between Trypillian communities and the steppe populations intensified in the late period. Close interaction with the ancient Yamnaya tribes and the influence of their traditions explain the emergence of the kurgan rite among the late Trypillian tribes, the spread of a number of specific forms of grave goods and corded ornamentation on pottery among them, and the formation of the complex and multi-component Usatovskaya group.

The emergence of the Usatovskaya group in this area marked the culmination of a long process of penetration of steppe pastoral groups into the agricultural community. These same groups became the transmission medium, facilitating contacts between Trypillian communities and the population of the North Caucasus. Evidence of reverse influences between Trypillian tribes and steppe groups is still limited. Nevertheless, these influences are undeniable.

The Trypillian influence on cultures such as the Sredny Stog and Dnieper-Donets cultures is significant.

The Sredny Stog culture (5300-3300 BC) occupied a vast area of the Black Sea steppe (from the Dnieper River, the upper Donets River, the lower Don River, and the Sea of Azov in the east to the Danube Delta in the west). It is sometimes combined with the more eastern Khvalynsk culture into a single cultural and historical community of the Black Sea-Caspian steppe. The main occupation of the Sredny Stog tribes was cattle breeding, likely including early forms of horse breeding.

Archaeologists believed that the Sredny Stog culture developed in the Azov-Dnieper-Donets region, based on the Lower Don and Sura cultures.

According to genetic data, the Sredny Stog culture arose as a result of population migration from the lower Volga region or the North Caucasus. This population carried the genes of Caucasian Neolithic farmers (particularly those from Armenia). The settlers, already familiar with livestock breeding, interbred with local residents in the Dnieper and Don river basins (the Dnieper-Donets culture).

The Sredny Stog people were farmers and livestock breeders. They kept sheep, goats, pigs, dogs, and horses. A large number of horse remains (52%) have been found in settlements dating back to 4200-4000 BC. They hunted deer, roe deer, wild boar, elk, otter, wolf, fox, beaver, and wild ass. They cultivated emmer wheat, barley, millet, and peas. They were also engaged in fishing.

Anthropologically, the Sredny Stog culture represented a mixture of two racial types: the Neolithic population of Ukraine (southern Mediterranean Caucasians) and the northern branch of Caucasians.

Y-chromosomal haplogroup I-L699 (I2a) has been identified in the Sredny Stog culture. During the Neolithic, this haplogroup predominated among the population of the Dnieper-Donetsk culture (Dnipropetrovsk region) and was found among Lower Volga pastoralists in the Volgograd and Saratov regions (5th millennium BC). Haplogroup R1b, also characteristic of the Dnieper-Donetsk culture, has been found. Haplogroup J2a (J-M319), of Transcaucasian origin, has been identified (4359-4251 BC, Rostov region). Mitochondrial haplogroups U5, U2, H13, U4, T2, K1, and I4 have been found in the Sredny Stog culture.

According to one theory, the migration of some of the Sredny Stog population to the Lower Danube was the cause of the separation of Anatolian languages from Indo-European. The Anatolian language had almost no vocabulary related to agriculture. According to researchers, this supports a Sredny Stog culture as its ancestral home.

The Dnieper-Donets culture (5th-3rd millennia BC) developed from local forest-steppe cultures under the influence of steppe cultures: the Bug-Dniester, Sura, Azov-Dnieper, and Lower Don cultures. The culture's source was the Mesolithic of southern Belarus, and a connection with the preceding Bug-Dniester culture is quite likely. The culture's initial area was in Ukrainian and Belarusian Polesia, from where its bearers moved north (to the Mogilev region) and southeast to the Don River and the Sea of Azov.

The main occupations of the culture's bearers were hunting and fishing. Although bones of dogs, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle are found at sites, wild animal bones predominate. The ratio of wild to domesticated bone remains is 78% to 22%. Birds and pond turtles were hunted in Polesia. The settlements consisted of dugouts.

Dnieper-Donets pottery is similar to the pottery of the western Ertebølle, Swifterbant, and French Sub-Neolithic cultures. It differs from the utensils of the Linear Pottery culture, which spread across central Europe during that era along with the Balkan Neolithic.

Dnieper-Donets pottery is similar to the neighboring Trypillian culture and the Samara culture (in the middle Volga region). The Dnieper-Donets culture was the initial center for the Pit-Comb Ware culture, which spread northward, moving through Valdai into Finland.

This culture occupied a region from the Vistula to the Dnieper, but some scholars, extending it to related cultures, extend it to the Volga and the Urals and believe that the bearers of this cultural complex spoke an Indo-European language.

Genetic studies have shown no direct connection between the pastoralists of the Volga and Ciscaucasia regions and the population of the Dnieper-Donets culture. Around 4500 BC, the tribes of the Dnieper-Donets culture were culturally and probably linguistically assimilated by tribes advancing from the east, which led to the formation of the Sredny Stog culture (this is expressed in the appearance of symbols of power in the form of a scepter-mace, characteristic of the Volga region).

Representatives of the Dnieper-Donets culture were clearly Cro-Magnon, which significantly distinguished them from the Mediterranean appearance of the Balkan Neolithic, but brought them closer to the Mesolithic of Northern Europe.

Archaeologists have suggested that the Dnieper-Donets culture was formed in the 6th millennium BC by migrants from the Balkan Peninsula (Bug-Dniester and other cultures), driven from their homelands by the expansion of the western Linear Pottery culture.

According to autosomal genetics, the population of the Dnieper-Donets culture was formed as a result of migration from the Balkan Peninsula to the Northern Black Sea region between the 7th and 6th millennia BC. The migrants interbred with the indigenous population, forming a new community. Genetic studies have confirmed that the Dnieper-Donetsk tribes (the population of the Mariupol community) received 45% of their genes from Balkan settlers from Serbia, 49% from settlers from the Samara region, and 7% from Linear Pottery tribes (Y-DNA haplogroups R1b and I2 and mtDNA haplogroup U). Moreover, almost all Y-chromosomal haplogroups of Dnieper-Donetsk males are of Balkan origin (I-L699 and R1b-V88), suggesting that the Dnieper-Donetsk population inherited their genetic heritage primarily through female lineages.

During the 6th millennium BC, the Dnieper-Donetsk tribes expanded eastward into the Don region, where they were further assimilated. The Dnieper-Donetsk culture in the Voronezh region, along with the Dnieper-Donetsk Y-chromosomal haplogroup I-L699, contains R1a-M459, characteristic of Eastern Europe.

In the Don region, the Dnieper-Donetsk tribes encountered a flood of migrants from the south with Transcaucasian genetics. As a result, the Dnieper-Donetsk culture in the Zaporizhzhia region (5475-5320 BC) contains 25% CHG genes, while in Mariupol (5474-5236 BC) it contains 7% Transcaucasian genes.

Around 4500 BC, the situation in the Northern Black Sea region changed dramatically with the invasion of pastoralists from the Volga region and the Ciscaucasia. The Dnieper-Donetsk culture was replaced by the Sredny Stog culture. Genetically, the Sredny Stog people inherited between 30 and 80% of their genes from the Dnieper-Donetsk population.

The continuity of Y-chromosomal haplogroups acquired after migration from the Balkan Peninsula was preserved in the Sredny Stog culture: almost all men of this culture possessed the Dnieper-Donetsk haplogroup I-L699. This continuity was disrupted only with the arrival of the Yamnaya culture in the Northern Black Sea region in the 4th millennium BC, which brought the R1b-M269 haplogroup, which was new to the region. The Yamnaya culture itself inherited approximately 23% of the Dnieper-Donetsk culture's genetics.