Governing Tripolye: Integrative architecture in Tripolye settlements

RESEARCH ARTICLE Governing Tripolye: Integrative architecture in Tripolye settlements Robert Hofmann ID1,2*, Johannes Müller1,2, Liudmyla Shatilo1,2, Mykhailo Videiko3, René Ohlrau1, Vitalii Rud ID4, Nataliia Burdo4, Marta Dal Corso1,2, Stefan Dreibrodt2,5, Wiebke Kirleis1,2 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 1 Institute for Pre- and Protohistory, Kiel University, Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 2 Collaborative Research Centre 1266: "Scales of Transformation—Human-Environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies", Kiel University, Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 3 Laboratory of Archaeology, Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, Kyiv, Ukraine, 4 Institute of Archaeology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine, 5 Institute for Ecosystem Research, Kiel University, Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany * Abstract OPEN ACCESS Citation: Hofmann R, Müller J, Shatilo L, Videiko M, Ohlrau R, Rud V, et al. (2019) Governing Tripolye: Integrative architecture in Tripolye settlements. PLoS ONE 14(9): e0222243. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222243 Editor: Peter F. Biehl, University at Buffalo - The State University of New York, UNITED STATES Received: May 17, 2019 Accepted: August 23, 2019 Published: September 25, 2019 Copyright: © 2019 Hofmann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files. Funding: The research was funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG, - Project number 2901391021 – SFB 1266). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Recently, high-resolution magnetometry surveys have led to the discovery of a special category of buildings–so-called ‘mega-structures’–situated in highly visible positions in the public space of Tripolye giant-settlements of the late 5th and first half of the 4th millennium BCE. In this paper we explore what these buildings actually are and how they can contribute to the understanding of the development of social space in Tripolye giant-settlements. For this investigation, we linked newly obtained excavation data from the giant-settlement Maidanetske, Ukraine, with a much larger sample of such buildings from magnetic plans obtained in the region between the Carpathian foothills and the Dnieper River. Accordingly, Tripolye mega-structures represent a particular kind of integrative building documented in many nonranked ethnographic contexts. Based on our results we are interpreting that these buildings were used for various ritual and non-ritual activities, joint decision-making, and the storage and consumption of surplus. In Tripolye giant-settlements at least three different categories of mega-structures could be identified which most likely represent different levels of sociopolitical integration and decision-making. The emergence of this hierarchical system of high-level integrative buildings for the whole community and different low-level integrative architectures for certain segments of local communities was related to the rise of Tripolye mega-sites. The presence of different integrative levels most likely reflects the fusion of different previously independent communities in the giant-settlements. Later in the mega-site development, we observe how low-level integrative buildings increasingly lose their importance indicated by shrinking size and, finally, their disappearance. This observation might indicate that the power which was previously distributed across the community was transferred to a central institution. It is argued that the non-acceptance of this concentration of power and the decline of lower decision-making levels might be a crucial factor for the disintegration of Tripolye giant-settlements around 3600 BCE. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222243 September 25, 2019 1 / 54 Governing Tripolye: Integrative architecture in Tripolye settlements Introduction Between ca. 4100–3600 BCE ‘giant-settlements’ or ‘mega-sites’ with thousands of houses arranged in a very specific centripetal layout emerged in a concentrated area of the Southern Bug-Dnieper Interfluve in the eastern part of the Tripolye distribution area (Fig 1). Currently, these unique settlements are the focus of different international projects [1–6]. Interpretations of their nature span between two extremes, from early urban phenomenon with complex social stratification to seasonally used pilgrimage sites. Thus, the question of their social organisation is newly under discussion [7–14]. Empirical anthropological research suggests that additional political institutions become necessary with rising population sizes in order to manage increased social complexity and scalar stress in large population agglomerations [15, 16]. Thus, the question arises how might these large Chalcolithic settlements have been organised in socio-political terms? While evolutionary-thinking authors assume a strong correlation between population sizes, organisational complexity, and social stratification [17], other authors stress that group size alone represents an insufficient criterion to predict social organisation. Rather, different modes of human cooperation have to be considered [18, 19]. Both archaeologists [20] and ethnographers [21, 22] have described the many possibilities of social organization from non-stratified to stratified societies existing independently from demographic, economic, and technological preconditions. In Tripolye societies, no clear indicators of pronounced wealth inequality, social stratification, or hierarchies have been identified so far, neither at the local level of large sites nor at the regional level between neighbouring villages [14, 23–25]. Consistent with that is the high degree of standardization of the houses and their furnishing. Thus, we assume [16] a rather balanced, non-hierarchical, corporative and negotiation-based mode of social organisation [12]. According to ethnographic sources, such non-stratified societies are frequently associated with integrative architecture or other integrative facilities (e.g. public squares); within these spaces, integrative activities and joint decision-making take place as mechanisms to maintain the social balance [26–28]. In many societies different levels of integration–for some part of the local community, for the whole local community, or even at a regional level–can be identified. The architecture mirrors the differentiated social organisation of these societies and lowand high-level social integration mechanisms. The s (...truncated)