Megalithic Giant Tripolye ‘Mega-Structures’ In Large Settlements That Collapsed Around 3650 BC

Conny Waters - AncientPages.com - Mysterious giant megastructures dated 4100-3600BC that belonged to the Tripolye culture have been now revealed and investigated by archaeologists, working at Maidanetske, about 235 kilometers (146 mi) south of Kiev, Ukraine.

Maidanetske. A reconstruction of the site in the Maidanetske local museum from 1998. The houses are placed in a forested environment (photo: Johannes Müller, Kiel).

To investigate the function of “megastructures”, Robert Hofmann at Kiel University, Germany, and his colleagues compared the structures of Maidanetske to more than 100 other megastructures in 19 other ancient European settlements.

The study suggests these buildings were likely used for a variety of ritual, economic, and decision-making purposes.

The hierarchy of mega-structures may indicate that sequential decision-making at various levels of society was important for maintaining structure within such large populations.

The team observed the disappearance of integrative buildings at lower and intermediate levels which is most likely the result of increasing centralization in power.

This underlying institutional loss, presumably, led to social imbalances in decision-making processes and made giant-settlements unmanageable.

The city-like settlements collapsed around 3650 BC.

See also:

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Ancient Greeks In Ukraine: 2000-Year-Old Settlement With Previously Unknown Structures

"The eldest proto-urban megasites of Europe collapsed after some generations around 3700 BCE, during which time they flourished with up to 10.000 inhabitants and attracted surrounding communities in the Northpontic forest-steppe with their extremely fertile black soils,” Hofmann explained.

Now our interdisciplinary study detected one reason for their collapse: a social imbalance in decision processes led to increased centralization of power structures.

These did not allow the management of the city-like settlements any longer. In consequence, these Tripolye megasites are an example, how humans should not govern.

Nevertheless, in consequence, urbanism developed much later in Europe than in the Near East."

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Written by Conny Waters - AncientPages.com Staff Writer