Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture - Nomenclature

Nomenclature

The culture was initially named after the village of Cucuteni in Iaşi County, Romania. In 1884 Teodor T. Burada visited the tell (a hill or mound formed by long-term human occupation) there and found fragments of pottery and terracotta figurines. Burada and other academics from Iaşi, including the poet Nicolae Beldiceanu and archeologists Grigore Butureanu, Dimitrie C. Butculescu and George Diamandi, subsequently began the first excavations at Cucuteni in the spring of 1885. Their findings were published in 1885 and 1889, and presented in two international conferences in 1889, both in Paris: at the International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology by Butureanu and at a meeting of the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris by Diamandi.

The first Ukrainian sites ascribed to the culture were discovered by Vicenty Khvoika. The year of his discoveries has been variously claimed as 1893, 1896 and 1887. In any case Khvoika presented his findings at the 11th Congress of Archaeologists in 1897, which is considered the official date of the discovery of the Trypillian culture in Ukraine. In the same year similar artifacts were excavated in the village of Trypillia (Ukrainian: Трипiлля, Russian: Трипольe) in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. As a result, this culture became identified in Soviet, Russian, and Ukrainian publications as the 'Tripolie' (or 'Tripolye'), 'Tripolian' or 'Trypillian' culture.

Today the finds from both countries, as well as those from Moldova, are recognized as belonging to the same cultural complex. This is generally known as the Cucuteni culture in Romania and the Trypillian culture (variously romanized) in Ukraine. In English, 'Cucuteni-Tripolye culture' is most commonly used to refer to the whole culture, with the Ukrainian-derived term 'Cucuteni-Tripillian culture' gaining currency following the collapse of the Soviet Union.