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Open Access

Tripolye Mega-Sites: “Collective Computational Abilities” of Prehistoric Proto-Urban Societies?

Johannes Müller1( ), Robert Hofmann1, Mila Shatilo1
Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, Kiel University, Kiel 24106, Germany
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Abstract

In the East European region between Prut and Dnieper, proto-urban mega-sites developed ca. 4100−3600 BCE with population agglomerations of around 10000 inhabitants per site. An outline of complexity categories, based on P. Turchin et al. (2018), illustrates that “computational abilities” are first developed to make the shift from dispersed to agglomerated settlement patterns. The development of an internal decision-making system for a polity that organizes communication via public buildings on different levels, together with a site-specific track system, may be responsible for this shift (or made it possible). However, after generations, this communication pattern was not developed into further collective communication abilities (e.g., into a writing system), while at the same time a tendency toward centralizing decision processes probably destroyed the communication flow. This ultimately led to the collapse of Tripolye mega-sites.

Keywords

non-state societiessocial constitutionChalcolithic mega-sitesTripolye

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Journal of Social Computing
Volume 3 Issue 1,
March 2022
Pages 75-90
DOI: 10.23919/JSC.2021.0034
Cite this article:
Müller J, Hofmann R, Shatilo M. Tripolye Mega-Sites: “Collective Computational Abilities” of Prehistoric Proto-Urban Societies?. Journal of Social Computing, 2022, 3(1): 75-90. https://doi.org/10.23919/JSC.2021.0034

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Received: 05 August 2021
Revised: 04 December 2021
Accepted: 08 December 2021
Published: 14 February 2022
© The author(s) 2021

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