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A deeper history of Europe’s cultural roots

When we think about the origins of Europe, we often think of Athens, Rome or the great civilisations of Mesopotamia.

But archaeology and modern scientific research are telling us that an important part of Europe’s earliest story lies much further east – in the lands of present-day Ukraine.

More than 6,000 years ago, the territory of modern Ukraine was home to some of the largest and most remarkable settlements of prehistoric Europe. These communities belonged to what is known as the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, a cultural complex that extended across large parts of present-day Ukraine, Moldova and Romania.

Europe’s first cities?

The Trypillia communities created enormous planned settlements during the fourth millennium BCE.

Some of these settlements covered hundreds of hectares and may have accommodated populations of many thousands of people. The settlement of Talianki, for example, is among the largest known prehistoric settlements in Europe, while other major sites such as Maidanetske and Nebelivka reveal sophisticated patterns of urban planning.

Researchers have found evidence of carefully organised neighbourhoods, large numbers of houses, specialised craft production and extensive agricultural systems.

A 2023 study led by researchers at Kiel University described the Trypillia mega-sites as the oldest cities in Europe, with some settlements reaching populations of approximately 15,000 people.

These were not cities in exactly the same sense as modern cities. Researchers therefore often use terms such as “mega-sites” or “proto-cities.” Nevertheless, their enormous scale and sophisticated planning challenge the old assumption that complex urban civilisation began only in Mesopotamia.

A different idea of civilisation

Perhaps even more fascinating is what these settlements tell us about how people organised their societies.

Archaeological evidence suggests that many Trypillia mega-sites lacked the monumental palaces and obvious centralised political structures familiar from later civilisations.

Instead, houses were often arranged in circular or concentric patterns around open communal spaces.

This has led researchers to consider whether these societies were organised in less hierarchical ways than the early states of Mesopotamia. Recent scholarship has even described the Trypillia mega-sites as some of the earliest examples of low-density, relatively egalitarian urbanism.

This raises a fascinating question:

Was civilisation always about kings, palaces and centralised power – or could organised human societies develop in other ways?

Ukraine and the story of language

The significance of ancient Ukraine extends beyond archaeology.

Historian Timothy Snyder has recently highlighted another extraordinary connection between the Ukrainian lands and the history of Europe: the origins and spread of the Indo-European languages.

Indo-European languages include English, German, Norwegian, French, Spanish, Greek and many of the languages of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as languages spoken much further east and south.

Today, roughly half of the world’s population speaks an Indo-European language as a first or major language.

For many years, scholars debated where the ancestral Indo-European language community originated. New evidence from archaeology, linguistics and especially ancient DNA has significantly strengthened the case for a major origin and dispersal zone in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, including what is now southern Ukraine.

Snyder has argued that pastoralist populations living in the Ukrainian and neighbouring steppe regions around 5,000 years ago played a major role in the spread of Indo-European languages across Europe and Asia.

This does not mean that the people of Trypillia simply spoke Ukrainian, or that modern Ukrainian can be traced directly back to them. The linguistic history is far more complex.

But it does mean that the territory of today’s Ukraine occupies a remarkable position in the much larger story of how languages, peoples and cultures moved across Europe.

A cultural crossroads

For thousands of years, the Ukrainian lands have been a meeting place between different worlds.

The Carpathians, the great Dnipro River, the Black Sea and the vast Eurasian steppe created routes for migration, trade, cultural exchange and communication.

Trypillia was one part of this enormous story.

Later came the peoples and cultures of the Bronze Age, the Scythians and Sarmatians, the Greek colonies of the Black Sea, the Goths, the early Slavic world and, eventually, Kyivan Rus.

Ukraine’s history therefore cannot be reduced to a story beginning in the medieval period.

It reaches deep into European prehistory.

Why does this matter today?

History matters because it influences how we understand ourselves – and how we understand one another.

For centuries, the history of Eastern Europe was too often viewed from the perspective of larger neighbouring powers. Ukraine was frequently treated as a geographical space between other civilisations rather than as a place with its own deep historical significance.

Modern archaeology and scientific research are changing that picture.

The discoveries surrounding Trypillia demonstrate that some of Europe’s earliest large-scale settlements developed in the territory of today’s Ukraine and its neighbouring regions. Scientific research into ancient populations and the spread of Indo-European languages is likewise placing the Ukrainian steppe at the centre of major chapters in European history.

And this is important for another reason.

Ukraine’s European identity is not something that began yesterday.

Europe has never been a simple geographical line on a map. It is a constantly developing network of peoples, languages, ideas, cultures and shared experiences.

Ukraine has been part of that story for thousands of years.