Talk:Decline and end of the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture

This article needs to be rated
If anyone cares to add a "Class" and "Importance" rating for this article in the categories left undone above, please feel free to do so. Thanks. --Saukkomies talk 15:40, 23 January 2010 (UTC) Done!--DThomsen8 (talk) 18:40, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Don't merge this article
This article was separated from the main Cucuteni-Trypillian culture article for good reasons. The main article was too large and covered too many topics, and needed to be broken down into smaller subarticles. Also, the subject matter of the theories regarding the end of the C-T culture are not necessarily directly linked to the Kurgan hypothesis, but addresses a number of other theories as well. Indeed, the Kurgan hypothesis is mostly nowdays considered to be borderline pseudoscience, and treating the objective analysis of the end of the C-T culture only as evidence to support the Kurgan hypothesis is to ignore a lot of scholarship and would break the NPOV rule. --Saukkomies talk 21:52, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The suggestion to split and merge is unjustified from my point of view. I agree with Saukkomies CristianChirita (talk) 07:31, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

No original research tag
I would like to know what parts of the article are being referred to by the "No New Research Tag". --Saukkomies talk 00:53, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I do not agree with new research tagCristianChirita (talk)

Gimbutas supporters
I have wondered why this article has been given so many flags for poor workmanship, and one of the things that comes to mind is that it is under attack from people who are apparently religiously devoted to supporting Gimbutas' theories of violent apocalyptic overthrow of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture by the Yamanya (Proto Indo European), which this article treats as having been largely discounted by later research and scholarship. This article does not have original research - it is merely reporting on the published literature in the field, therefore it does not deserve to have those tags put on it. It could use some cleaning up as far as grammar etc, but the overall treatment of the article should be left as is, I think. --Saukkomies talk 21:42, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you are conflating several issues and your phrasing ("apocalyptic overthrow") also suggests that you are at least close to strawmanning and caricaturising Gimbutas's views out of a need to dismiss her contributions, even though much of her work is highly respected among archaeologists and other scholars, especially her earlier, more technical work. While many of her specific conclusions are heavily controversial (though not necessarily unanimously dismissed in their entirety, such as her idea that the decline of the CT was short and there was no protracted period of co-existence with the Yamna, which Mallory does take seriously), the core of the Kurgan hypothesis (which she didn't even originate), that the more or less direct origin of the Indo-European languages is to be sought in the semi-nomadic, equestrian cultures of the Neolithic Pontic steppe, has not been overturned, despite all attacks, and evidence is mounting that at least this part is basically correct – at least closer to the truth than the competing theories about the origins of the Indo-European languages, especially those placing the origins somewhere in Asia. The impression you give that the Kurgan hypothesis is rejected as borderline pseudo-science wholesale by the scholarly community, let alone someone as Mallory in In Search of the Indo-Europeans, who is in his book largely in agreement with Gimbutas – at least with regard to the crucial importance of the steppe cultures for the question of Indo-European origins –, indicates that you misrepresent the state of the art in your anti-Gimbutas zeal (I'm not sure while she attracts such unwarrantedly strong emotions). This makes the article appear like a POV fork to some extent, and your belligerent attitude and insistence that the article be left alone, although you do not WP:OWN it, supports this suspicion. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:38, 3 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I do not claim to "own" the C-T articles, though I do have a strong commitment to them, stemming from the hundreds (if not thousands) of hours I spent developing them from the sad little poorly-written stub that I first stumbled on while doing personal research on the origins of the Hellenic people. I improved that stub a LOT, and even the most biased appraisal would accede to that, and I was happy to do it.


 * That being said, I have always maintained that my efforts were not perfect, and I've always welcomed others who are better editors than I to jump in and improve these articles, so long as they do so according to the Wiki guidelines. If you would like to help, please do so. We all contribute as we can; my contribution to this subject was immense, but I am only able to go so far with it.


 * May I suggest working together? It would certainly be better than posting accusatory comments.


 * However, I do maintain my stand on Gimbutas. She has been embraced by many groups over the years, from radical feminists to Neopagans, who have used her work in non-balanced ways to over-emphasize points that support their own theories or claims. If I err too far the other way, by rejecting Gimbutas outright, it is from a sense of defensiveness over some star-eyed Gimbutas groupie taking over this subject. So forgive me, if you may; my earnestness comes from a sense of protecting these articles rather than from "ownership", though the differences are difficult to distinguish. If someone sincerely wishes to improve and build on the work that has been done so far, I welcome their efforts. --Saukkomies talk 13:13, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Florian - Looking over the article again, I think that it seems that you are not being fair in your assessment. I do give Gimbutas lots of credit for contributing to the study of the C-T culture, and for her valuable research. What I also credit, though, is the more recent data and research that points to the dramatic climate change that took place at the end of the Holocene climatic optimum, which lasted from 7000 to 3200 BC, or, in other words, for most of the time that the C-T culture flourished. The shift in climate is quite convincing as a factor influencing the end of their culture, and in the switching from agricultural to nomadic herding as the primary livelihood. A bloody savage takeover of one culture over another is not necessary, and if there were such events, the archaeological record does not support it, since there is no indication that any of the C-T settlements were destroyed by warfare. And yet, this was one of Gimbutas' primary theories - that the warlike Patriarchal, nomadic Yamna culture wiped out the peaceful agrarian Trypillian. And it is this point which Mallory disagrees with. --Saukkomies talk 13:39, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

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Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Cucuteni-Trypillian culture which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 15:46, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

great article. The contributors have done a good job which other can improve. Thats the main point of wikipedia.

Unfortunately, wikipedia has a buraucracy of people who like to sensor content. Its very hard to get new articles approved. A main reason for using wikipedia is to find stuff not found elsewhere in mainstream litereature. However, the reviewers tend to require only mainstream stuff. Many also lack the knowledge about a topic to make good reviews. Then we have all the people who want articles to be in a certain way. How can we learn new stuff if we are only allowed to write about stuff that is 100 % political correct and verified from 4 new sources??? And who gets to decide that something is less important and relevant??? Other people may infact be looking for such information to expand their knowledge.

I support people who contribute and improve, not those who are negative and sensor. It has become harder to be a contributor on wikipedia due to the buracratic sensors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raven rs (talk • contribs) 01:19, 24 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I dont have any problem getting articles approved, you just have to follow the rules (well once or twice I have been done over - rather arbitrarily as similar articles have got up).
 * In this case - sorry but this article is full of nonsense about "Yamnaya" and "horse riding" and misquotes of Gimbutas. Given the apparently strong feelings some have on these matters - I am reluctant to make the necessary changes.
 * I am surprised that several other reasonable conjectures for the end of C-T have not been considered - a) natural disaster b) disease. Also remember Maykop fell around the same time - as did virtually all the northern neolithic societies. Redabyss1 (talk) 14:23, 13 June 2024 (UTC)