The Vast Ancient Cities of Prehistoric Europe

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The Cucuteni-Trypillia culture was a Chalcolithic society that flourished between about 5000 and 3000 BC in Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. Their most astounding innovation is the vast settlements they constructed, with thousands of large houses covering up to 450 hectares, with estimated populations of up to 46,000 residents. Even larger than the first cities of Sumer in Mesopotamia.
But why did they build these enormous settlements?

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*Sources*

The First Farmers of Europe https://amzn.to/3wNDcqA
The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe https://amzn.to/43eSVRO
The Lost World of Old Europe https://amzn.to/44YY7LN
The Tripolye culture Giant Settlements of Ukraine https://amzn.to/4m2xEDb
Maidanets-ke https://www.sidestone.com/books/maidanets-ke
Tripolye Typo-chronology https://www.sidestone.com/books/tripolye-typo-chronology
The Living Goddesses https://amzn.to/4fFaAYV

The rise and fall of the mysterious culture that invented civilisation
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933230-900-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-mysterious-culture-that-invented-civilisation/
Who built Europe’s first cities? Clues about the urban revolution emerge / nature.com
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04216-1

Nebbia, M., Gaydarska, B., Millard, A., & Chapman, J. (2018). The making of chalcolithic assembly places: Trypillia megasites as materialized consensus among equal strangers? World Archaeology, 50(1), 41–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2018.1474133
Immel, A., Țerna, S., Simalcsik, A. et al. Gene-flow from steppe individuals into Cucuteni-Trypillia associated populations indicates long-standing contacts and gradual admixture. Sci Rep 10, 4253 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61190-0
Kirleis, W., Corso, M.D., Pashkevych, G. et al. A complex subsistence regime revealed for Cucuteni–Trypillia sites in Chalcolithic eastern Europe based on new and old macrobotanical data. Veget Hist Archaeobot 33, 75–90 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-023-00936-y
Gelabert, P., Schmidt, R.W., Fernandes, D.M. et al. Genomes from Verteba cave suggest diversity within the Trypillians in Ukraine. Sci Rep 12, 7242 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-11117-8

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*Video Chapters*

00:00 The World’s First Cities
01:49 Sponsorship
03:30 Megasites
05:46 The Cucuteni-Trypillia culture
07:05 Cucuteni-Trypillia Houses and Settlements
09:41 Steppe Herders
11:32 Intergroup Violence
13:35 Investigating the Megasites
14:35 Burned House Horizon
15:57 Seasonal Settlements
17:02 Hierarchies
20:18 Sources
20:50 The End of the Megasites