Talianki or Talianky (Ukrainian: Тальянки) is a very large archaeological site. It is located near a modern village with the same name. This village is in the Cherkasy Oblast region of the modern country of Ukraine. Talianki is famous because it was a giant settlement. It belonged to an ancient group of people called the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture. These people lived a very long time ago. The settlement at Talianki was active between the years 3850 BC and 3700 BC. This time period is known as the Neolithic period, or the New Stone Age. Today, scientists believe that Talianki is the largest known settlement from Neolithic Europe. It was so large that scientists often call it a "mega-site" or a "proto-city". It had thousands of houses and thousands of people living there at the same time.
Geography and Location The ancient people built Talianki in a very careful way. They chose a special piece of land. They built the town on a bluff. A bluff is a high piece of land with a steep edge. This high ground was very safe. It also gave the people a good view of the land around them. The settlement was located between two bodies of water. On one side was the Talianka River. On the other side was a smaller stream. This was a good choice for a town. The people needed fresh water every day. They needed water to drink, to cook, and to clean. They also needed water for their farm animals. Because they lived between a river and a stream, they never ran out of water. The rich soil near the water was also very good for growing crops.
Discovery of the Site For thousands of years, the giant town of Talianki was hidden under the dirt. Nobody knew it was there. People farmed the land on top of the ancient town without knowing what was below them. The site was finally discovered in the 1970s. It was not found by digging. It was found from the sky. A Ukrainian pilot was flying an airplane in his free time. He used a special camera to take pictures of the ground. This camera used infrared film. Infrared cameras can see heat and things that normal human eyes cannot see. When the pilot looked at his infrared pictures, he saw strange shapes on the ground. The pictures showed huge circles in the dirt. These circles were the hidden remains of ancient houses. The ancient clay and burned wood under the ground changed the way the soil looked from the sky. This discovery was very exciting for scientists. It showed them exactly where the ancient mega-site was located.
Excavations and Archaeological Work
After the pilot found the site, scientists wanted to study it. In 1981, a team of archaeologists began to dig at Talianki. An archaeologist is a scientist who studies history by looking at things people left behind in the ground. The team was led by a man named Vladimir Kruts. Kruts and his team worked at the site for many years. They carefully removed the dirt. They found the floors and walls of ancient houses. They found pieces of broken pots. They also found animal bones and old tools. Kruts continued to direct the digging at Talianki until the year 2001. Later, scientists used new technology to map the site. They used machines that measure magnetism in the ground. This is called a geomagnetic survey. It allows scientists to draw a map of the whole ancient town without digging up the whole area. The map showed that the town was enormous and highly organized.
Layout and Architecture
The map of Talianki showed a very special design. The town was not built in a messy way. It was planned very carefully. The houses were built in giant circles. The shape was ovular, which means it looked like a stretched circle or an egg. There were many rings of houses. The rings were concentric. Concentric means that the circles were inside of other circles. All the houses were connected in these long rows. The center of the circles was mostly empty. This empty space might have been a public square. People could have used the empty center for meetings, festivals, or keeping animals safe. The houses themselves were very impressive for the Stone Age. Many of the buildings had two storeys. This means they had a ground floor and an upper floor. The people built their houses using wood and clay. First, they made a frame out of wooden logs and branches. Then, they covered the wood with wet clay and mud. This building style is called wattle and daub. When the clay dried in the sun, it became hard and strong like a wall. The people of Talianki also liked to decorate their homes. They painted the walls and ceilings of their houses. They used natural colors like red, black, and white. They painted beautiful designs. These designs were very similar to the patterns they painted on their pottery.
Population and Size Estimates Because Talianki is so big, scientists have debated how many people lived there. It is very hard to count people from 5,000 years ago. Scientists have made different guesses based on the size of the town and the number of houses. At first, Vladimir Kruts guessed that the total area of the settlement was 450 hectares (1,100 acres). A hectare is a very large area of land. He made this guess because he thought the town had a rectangular shape. Another scientist, Mykhailo Videiko, used the number of houses to guess the population. He looked at the parts of the site that had been dug up. He guessed that Talianki had about 2,700 buildings. Because there were so many houses, Videiko guessed that more than 15,000 people lived there at its peak time. Later, new tools gave scientists better information. Thomas K. Harper used the new geomagnetic map of the site to measure it again. He found that the actual area was 335 hectares (830 acres). Because the area was smaller than Kruts thought, Harper said that Videiko's population guess was probably too high. Harper guessed that the population was between 6,300 and 11,000 people. He believed the lower number was more likely. However, many other scientists still use much larger numbers. A population of 15,000 people is the most common guess. Some researchers even add the populations of smaller satellite towns. A satellite town is a small village built close to a big city. If the satellite towns are added, the total population of the Talianki cluster could have been 25,000 to 30,000 people. Even with the lowest guesses, Talianki was a massive city for the Stone Age. It was larger than almost anywhere else in the world at that time.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
