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.
The Macmillan dictionary of archaeology, Ruth D. Whitehouse, 1983