ABSTRACT
This chapter examines examples of the emergence of what we call Big Weird Sites 'settlements that are unusually large for their local and regional cultural context and which pose questions about the evolutionary model of settlement growth. It suggests that Trypillia mega-sites were an egalitarian, pre-state form of early, low-density urban settlement. We do no. have the space here to pursue this irony and shall be content ourselves with an approach to one specific form of urbanism that has some relevance to the Trypillia problem, as well as other urban debates. It is thus difficult to detect in the eastern Balkans and the North Pontic zone any trend towards high-density dwelling prior to the Trypillia sites. Taken together with the general absence of prestige goods, especially of metal, on the mega-sites but in view of their extreme size, we suggest that Trypillia mega-sites were an egalitarian, pre-state form of early, low-density urban settlement.
