Given all the coverage of Ukraine since the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, and Vladimir Putin’s justification of his 'special operation' as stemming from Ukraine’s lack of historic independence, one would think that some mention would have been made of the important pre-history of Ukraine. But so far, I have seen none. I was only made aware of these facts by reading Graeber and Wengrow’s pathbreaking work (David Graeber’s last), The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, Farrar-Straus, 2021. In that book, Graeber and Wengrow discuss the Mega-Sites that appeared in Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova during the Neolithic era, more than 5,000 years ago. The authors discuss recent research (the sites were discovered in the 1970s) establishing the astonishing fact that several excavations confirm that ‘cities’ such as Nebelivka, and Taljanky (ca. 20,000 residents) did in fact exist in Ukraine’s Uman district south of Kyiv, and pre-dated the supposed ‘first’ cities in the near East—Sumerian cities which are said to prove that large-scale agriculture led directly to bureaucracies, priesthoods, and powerful rulers. These Ukrainian sites seem to disprove that long-standing theory.
Regardless of the agriculture-to-cities debate, however, the existence of such sites, usually assembled in circular patterns, and consisting of individual groups of wooden houses that appear to have been more or less independent of a central ruler and/or government for as long as eight centuries, proves that civilization—or at least large self-governing communities—existed in Ukraine long before there was a Russia or a Soviet Union to claim hegemony over this land. And given the discussion about how Ukraine’s grain exports fed nearly half the globe before Russia’s invasion put an end to easy shipments of grain via Black Sea ports, it is enlightening to read that the reason such large populations could gather and thrive in pre-history must have been due to the soil. That is, as much as two-thirds of Ukraine has been blessed with a type of rich, black, exceptionally-fertile soil called chernozem (Russian for “black ground”). That is why grain grew and still grows so abundantly there; chernozem contains a high percentage of humus (4% to 16%) and high percentages of phosphoric acids, phosphorus, and ammonia. So valuable is it (it is 60 inches deep in Ukraine) that it has been sold on the black market for years.
The name given to these early cultures by pre-historians is Cucuteni-Trypillia. Though there is some dispute about their nature (i.e., whether they were permanent living sites or were occupied only temporarily; whether they should be called ‘cities’ or ‘villages;’ what kind of rule kept them together, councils with shifting leadership, or more permanent leaders), what no longer seems in dispute is that these ‘mega-sites,’ consisting of thousands of individual houses and several larger communal structures, and extending over hundreds of hectares, have caused the traditional view of the origin of cities to be re-evaluated, and perhaps changed for good. That is to say, most of these homes have been found to be almost self-sufficient, containing not only ovens for warming and cooking, but also kilns with which to make their distinctive pottery, and sacred altars for worship. So whereas traditional early cities were seen as gathering around rulers and a priesthood directing subservient masses to toil to produce wealth for those rulers, the mega-sites in Ukraine seem to have avoided all that paraphernalia, and its resultant inequality. Rules seem to have been made by neighborhood councils, rather then handed down from above. The design of these places—roughly circular groups of houses, none of which stands out from others—reinforces this notion of rough equality among its residents.
This evidence of the ancient habitation of Ukraine, to this writer, says volumes both about our notion of how humans initially gathered in large groups we call ‘cities,’ but also how it validates the current Ukrainian fight for independence from Russia. About how preposterous the Russian claims to justify its invasion are seen to be. And though Vladimir Putin probably has no idea of this pre-history, one wonders what would happen if he did. Would it change his tiny, imperial mind? Probably not. But perhaps it would give him dreams disturbing enough to make him pause his bloody work—which would not be a bad outcome, all things considered.
Lawrence DiStasi
