Talianki or Talianky () is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

near the village of the same name in

Cherkasy Oblast Cherkasy Oblast (, ), also referred to as Cherkashchyna (, ) is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in central Ukraine located along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. The Capital city, administrative center of the oblast is the cit ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. It was the location of a large Cucuteni-Trypillian settlement dating to around 3850–3700 BC, currently the largest known settlement in

Neolithic Europe The European Neolithic is the period from the arrival of Neolithic (New Stone Age) technology and the associated population of Early European Farmers in Europe, (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) until –1700 BC (t ...

. The settlement, built on a bluff between the Talianka River and a smaller stream, was made up of ovular, concentric rows of interconnected buildings. Built on top of the older Cucuteni-Trypillian settlement are the remains of some

Yamnaya culture The Yamnaya ( ) or Yamna culture ( ), also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, is a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic–C ...

tumuli A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

(burial mounds) dating to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, as well as some graves from the late

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

Talianki was discovered in an

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

aerial photography Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other flight, airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography. Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wi ...

survey carried out in the 1970s by a Ukrainian pilot in his spare time. Excavations at the site began in 1981, directed by Vladimir Kruts. Further excavations were carried out by Kruts up to 2001. Many of the buildings that were excavated had two storeys. The walls and ceilings of the structures were decorated with red and black designs, reminiscent of designs painted on Cucuteni-Trypillian pottery, which, along with ceramic figurines, were also found at the site. Finds from these excavations are exhibited in the Cherkasy Regional Museum, the Museum of Agriculture in Talne, and the Institute of Archaeology in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

. Kruts estimated the total area of the settlement at , on the assumption that it had a rectangular plan. Extrapolating from this and the density of houses in the surveyed portions of the site, M. Videiko estimated that Talianki contained approximately 2,700 structures and, at its height, could have been occupied by over 15,000 inhabitants. Recently Kruts' figure has been revised by Thomas K. Harper, who used a geomagnetic plan of the site to put its area at . This implies Videiko's figure for the peak population of the site is also an overestimation, with Harper suggesting 6,300–11,000 as a more likely range, favouring the lower end. But other estimates are much larger with a population of around 15,000 as the most cited, and adding the numbers for the satellite towns the total population were up to 25,000–30,000 people within its cluster. Research in 2014 indicates that Talianki contained between 15,600 and 21,000 people.

References

{{Reflist Archaeological sites in Ukraine Megasites Cucuteni–Trypillia culture

See also

References