Urban citizen before cities in Chalcolithic Europe? The case of Trypillia mega-sites скачать в хорошем качестве

Urban citizen before cities in Chalcolithic Europe? The case of Trypillia mega-sites

Marco Nebbia (UCL) Eastern Europe doesn’t generally come to mind when discussing early urbanism, and yet in recent years a surge in research projects and publications can shed a new light on the so-called ‘Trypillia mega-sites’. These are large (up to 320 ha) settlements that emerged in modern Ukraine during the 4th millennium BC. The largest (known) settlements in Chalcolithic Europe triggered a heated debate on their potential urban nature, which has been now widely discussed through a number of definitions such as: ‘mega-sites’, ‘overgrown villages’, ‘settlement giants’, ‘proto-cities’, and even ‘early cities’. One of the key aspects of Trypillia mega-sites is that no social hierarchy has materialised, archaeologically, and apparently wasn’t needed to make these sites functioning for over 8 centuries. This paper will discuss the many aspects that make Ukrainian mega-sites of interests for the early urbanism debate, with particular attention to the wider Trypillia settlement system and to the social processes that might have occurred in the initial phases of one of them (Nebelivka). Through the lens of spatial analysis and social theory there is scope for thinking that urban-like identities might have developed before a ‘Childean urban form’, in Chalcolithic Ukraine.