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Ancient Europe and Ukraine [1]
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Date: 2022-10-16
Cucuteni Plate Design
At roughly 50,000 Years Ago we find the first ‘Europeans’ arriving from the Near East into central Europe where it was frequently cold and life was largely about survival and particularly hunting and foraging. Sites in Moldova occupied by Neanderthals 47,000–45,000 YA include a mammoth bone dwelling, which the modern humans who followed would continue as a form of domestic architecture over the next 35,000 years.
Between 40,000-45,000 YA the Danube became a key corridor into central Europe for early modern humans. The site at Geissenkloesterle in the Swabian caves system in what is now southern Germany provides clear evidence that these were quite sophisticated people, as it contained a 40,000 YA flute made from bird bones. Equally, at Hohle Fels , part of the same cluster of Aurignacian sites, a statuette of an anthropomorphised lion has been dated to 40,000 YA and a 35,000 YA carved female figurine or ‘Venus’ was found along with parts of three flutes.
in the Swabian caves system in what is now southern Germany provides clear evidence that these were quite sophisticated people, as it contained a 40,000 YA flute made from bird bones. Equally, at , part of the same cluster of Aurignacian sites, a statuette of an anthropomorphised lion has been dated to 40,000 YA and a 35,000 YA carved female figurine or ‘Venus’ was found along with parts of three flutes. The ‘Venus’ found at Holhe Hels is currently the most ancient known figure representing a human. Between the lion figure and the Venus there is clearly a switch from solely abstract art to representational art which is thought by some to have coincided with a period of language development.
The Galgenberg ‘Venus’ back in the day when women could dance without GOP approval. At almost 30,000 YA the female figure is among those demonstrating that women were depicted in many forms.
The earliest ‘Venus’ figures are often considered to be connected to fertility and may have been understood in terms of a life-giving and life-taking ‘protector’. However, the early lion figure and the first Venus could as easily have been children’s toys. That said the first ‘Venus’ is suited to having been worn as a pendant and decorative art has been found at other locations. They are certainly part of a persistent if evolving tradition, as further examples appear consistently and these have philosophical or ‘sacred’ associations. Among other examples, the ‘Venus’ of Galgenberg 32,000 YA, Willendorf 30,000-27000 YA, (with braided hair or hat/ veil), and Brassempouy 25,000 YA (with braided hair or hat/ veil), accompany the transition into the Gravettian of 29,000-22,000 YA. Later these ‘Venus’ or ‘Goddess’ figures came to depict women in many situations, which included a life and death-giving mother who was a relentless controller of lives or fates.
In the Middle Gravettian of 26,000 to 24,000 YA the first pan-European civilisation emerges. The culture reaches along the Danube and into Central France with a focus on the Middle Danube. People survive as hunter-gatherers by manufacturing goods to a high standard. Life was tough but not without music and dance. They hunted mammoths, slept in pavilions raised on mammoth bones and carved in ivory and stone.
One of several design elements appear at Myzen that have been part of European and Asia design for at least 10,000 years.
Approximately 10,000 YA a branch of the same European culture was busy in the region of Myzen within the territory now forming Ukraine. Despite the distance of 3,000 km, rock carvings at Lalinde and carvings in bone nearby at Andernach, in what is now Germany, match those at Myzen and show Myzen was attached to the Venus based Lalinde Gonnersdorf culture (15,000-11,000 YA). The Lalinde Gonnersdorf culture also appears in France at Gare de Couze, so it really was a pan-European connectivity. T here are early examples of carved calendars at Myzen and the location is primarily known for art that is diagrammatic, which in combination indicates that our ancestors had a deep concern with measuring time and season.
Cucuteni pottery was and is a mix of symbolic designs and zoomorphic figures.
The hunters’ early timekeeping was incorporated as naturalistic diagrams, first in carvings and eventually in ceramics and other forms. For example, Ursa Major appears both four-square in the positions the constellation would rotate through daily and in positions it would appear in at solstices and equinoxes. The key to this was observance of the anti-clockwise rotating of the skies of the Northern hemisphere around Celestial North, and the clockwise rotation of the Southern hemisphere. These kinds of basic observations, measurements and their recording for the purposes of anticipating or predicting events with reasonable accuracy is where science started.
The ovens used to bake bread and ceramics were simple in design but very effective.
At about the same time the beginnings of agriculture and animal husbandry were starting to move North and West from Anatolia, which resulted in a gradual switch from hunter gathering to a reliance on agriculture and livestock. The existing European tradition merged with Anatolian inputs and prosperity fostered a series of related civilisations across south-west Europe and the Aegean coast. By 7,000 YA the resulting farming cultures included Hamangia, Vincha, Gumelnita, Dudesti, Cris-Boian, Vadastra, . . . and, in what is now Romania and Ukraine, Cucuteni-Trypillian culture.
Cucuteni Vase
Cucuteni culture became a full-blown civilisation spreading over about 350,000 square km, with thousands of settlements of various sizes, towns covering hundreds of hectares, substantive fortifications, many types of dwellings and a body of sculpture and ceramics that allowed them to fully express their worldview. Cucuteni culture was rooted in early European worship, which initially concerned celebrating, fearing and respecting forces of nature through totemism, animism and naturalism. They appear to have survived in relative peace for over almost 2,000 years, perhaps because they made towns but not cities, resources were plentiful and they had well-connected social dynamics. In agricultural society roles were likely somewhat gender specific with women running the home, childcare and ceramics, (their books), and men farming, fending off some seriously dangerous wildlife and observing the sky as the available clock. There is a modern emphasis on 'Goddess' or 'Venus' figures that perhaps tends to overlook the presence and role of a divine couple generally presented as in partnership.
The Cucuteni and related cultures were not some sort of super civilisation as imagined by alt historians. However, they had excellent horizon astronomy, farmed efficiently and their designs showed considerable skill and understanding of geometry. The spiral design is in later times much associated with ‘the breath of life’, found in liminal or ‘sacred’ areas and said to concern the infinite. The same motif appears in many directions including Neolithic womb tombs in Ireland and pre-dynastic Ancient Egypt among Naqada artefacts.
While early timekeeping and calendars must of necessarily have pre-occupied hunter gatherers, as complex agricultural cultures developed an early worldview or basic cosmology appeared concerning the rotation of the hemispheres, the transition across the horizons, and the three levels of Earth/ Underworld/ Heaven. The latter appears to have direct connections to Anatolia, as Catal Huyuk which presents the same model. There is nothing particularly complex about the ancient Europeans’ worldview or cosmology and we have to wait until well into the Neolithic for more elaborate horizon astronomy to develop. However, as populations grew and persisted in stable settings it is unsurprising that there was time available to spend on developing more complex understandings.
Credit for the first wheel goes to those once living in what is now Ukraine. Objects appear to have been considered ‘sacred’ when designs and symbols were applied to them. However, that applied to everything from kitchen utensils through to what in this case may have been a child’s toy.
The Cucuteni flourished from about 7,400–4,750 YA and entered the Copper Age while much of the rest of Europe was continuing the Neolithic. As a result of climate change impacting from 5,200 YA the culture eventually went the way of its early neighbours. However, they had somewhat surpassed others by embedding their ideas in advance of change and spreading them further afield. Locally, the early Bronze Age Yamna culture of the steppes and the Catacomb culture eventually replaced the Cucuteni.
A Cucuteni ‘shrine’ marked with the earliest examples of yin and yang diagrams. There are larger examples and these shamanic and therapeutic ‘houses of life’ can reasonably be considered the first hospitals.
Nevertheless, the culture, and the concepts it protected, went wherever those dispersing from Cucuteni territory went . . . very obviously towards China, down into the Aegean civilisations, back to Anatolia and even over to France and Ireland in steps by means of exogamy/ distant marriages. The Minoans offer a good example, as they made extensive use of Cucuteni design elements and attached considerable attention to a 'Goddess' figure some 3,500 YA. They serve as something of a time capsule for earlier ancient Black Sea and Aegean cultures but were significantly different. Cucuteni culture became a Copper age agricultural culture, while the Minoans were very advanced in terms of developing early writing and offering 'healthcare' but focused on building and sustaining a maritime empire involving colonial wars such as in Iberia. They needed minerals that weren’t available on Crete.
The Aegina treasure is a Minoan gold hoard found in Greece that dates to between 3850 and 3550 YA. It is a very clear example of an exact repetition of Cucuteni design that was already thousands of years old as shown at the top of the page. The cosmological symbolism concerning the equinoxes and seasons remained both decorative and of practical relevance.
The Iron Age brings a more local revival of elements of Cucuteni culture, as Dacians, Cimmerians (the Novocherkassk culture), Scythians and Sarmatians hold power and the Scythian kingdom that persisted from 2,750 to 2,250 YA is heavily influenced by Cucuteni design.
It is possible to follow the dispersal of Cucuteni and related cultures by looking for the designs as they occur across history. The interlaced design from Myzen and other representations of the four quarters, (which include the original non-Nazi swastika), yin and yang symbols and the master/ mistresses of the beasts found across Europe and Asia. As noted earlier the distinctive spirals can be found as far removed from Ukraine as Egypt and Ireland. Unsurprisingly, the dispersal follows a pattern of fanning out in the direction of locations that remained viable when climate change brought an end to the Cucuteni and their prosperous agricultural lifestyle.
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