Cucuteni-Tripolye

A Neolithic culture of southeastern Europe, distributed throughout the Ukraine (Tripolye culture) and Moldova and Romania (Cucuteni culture), which arose about 3000 BC. The type site of the Cucuteni is in the Siret valley of Romania and the type site of the Tripolye is near Kiev in Ukraine. The Cucuteni is divided into stages: Pre-Cucuteni, Cucuteni A, AB and B, dating c 4200-3000 BC. Tripolye is divided into five phases - A, B1, B2, C1 and C2 - the latest dating to the full Early Bronze Age in the 3rd millennium BC. The late Cucuteni-Tripolye phase is regarded as the local climax of Neolithic cultural development. They produced fine wares (red or orange and was decorated with curvilinear designs painted or grooved on the surface) on a large scale and long chipped stone blades. They also mastered metallurgical techniques such as alloying, casting, and welding. There was a subsistence economy depending on fruits and the earliest recorded domestication in Europe of the horse. The villages consisted of long, rectangular houses, though the Tripolye people practiced shifting agriculture and frequently moved.

The double-barrelled name indicates national terminology for a more-or-less identical cultural assemblage. Cucuteni, the Rumanian version, distributed over Moldavia, is divided into 4 stages: Pre-Cucuteni, Cucuteni A, AB and B, dating ¿4200-3000 be. Tripolye, the Russian version, spreading eastwards across the Ukraine to the edge of the forest steppe zone near Kiev, is divided into five phases — A, Bl, B2, Cl and C2 — the latest dating to the full Early Bronze Age in the 3rd millennium be. The late Cucuteni-Tripolye phase is regarded as the local climax of Neolithic cultural development. Beside the achievement of large-scale production of fine wares and long chipped stone blades stands the technological mastery of metallurgical techniques such as alloying, casting and welding. Such craft specialization evolved in large nucleated villages, the largest covering over one square kilometre. The subsistence economy is as remarkable for its range of fruits (including the hybrid apricot) as for the earliest recorded domestication in Europe of the horse.