Trypillia mega-sites: a social levelling concept?
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Explanations for the emergence and abandonment of the Chalcolithic Trypillia mega-sites have long been debated. Here, the authors use Gini coefficients based on the sizes of approximately 7000 houses at 38 Trypillia sites to assess inequality between households as a factor in the rise and/or demise of these settlements. The results indicate temporarily reduced social inequality at mega-sites. It was only after several generations that increased social differentiation re-emerged and this may explain the subsequent abandonment of the mega-sites. The results indicate that increases in social complexity need not be associated with greater social stratification and that large aggregations of population can, for a time at least, find mechanisms to reduce inequality.
Between c. 4200 and 3600 BC, the so-called Trypillia mega-sites were established on the northern limits of the Pontic Steppe (Zbenovich Reference Zbenovich 1996; Videiko Reference Videiko 1998; Menotti & Korvin-Piotrovskiy Reference Menotti and Korvin-Piotrovskiy 2012; Müller et al. Reference Müller, Rassmann and Videiko 2016a; Gaydarska Reference Gaydarska 2020). With sizes of up to 320ha and around 10 000 inhabitants, they are among the largest prehistoric communities in Europe. These settlements were built in a partially open forest-steppe landscape with very fertile loess-based soils (Kirleis & Dreibrodt Reference Kirleis, Dreibrodt, Müller, Rassmann and Videiko 2016; Dreibrodt et al. Reference Dreibrodt 2022). They were agricultural settlements inhabited all year round, with an economy based on the cultivation of cereals and pulses and on intensive and extensive animal husbandry centred on cattle (Kruts et al. Reference Kruts, Korvin-Piotrovskiy and Rizhov 2001; Kirleis & Dal Corso Reference Kirleis, Dal Corso, Müller, Rassman and Videiko 2016; Dal Corso et al. Reference Dal Corso 2018; Orton et al. Reference Orton, Nottingham, Rainsford-Betts, Hosking, Millard and Gaydarska 2020; Makarewicz et al. Reference Makarewicz, Hofmann, Videiko and Müller 2022; Schlütz et al. Reference Schlütz 2023).
