Architectural differentiation on a Trypillia mega-site: preliminary report on the excavation of a mega-structure at Nebelivka, Ukraine

For over a century, excavations on Trypillia sites in Ukraine and Moldova, as well as on Cucuteni sites in Romania, have revealed few obvious signs of architectural differentiation among the huge numbers of domestic houses. Now, for the first time, a new generation of geophysical prospection methods used to investigate mega-sites has revealed uncommonly large Trypillia structures which merit the name ‘mega-structures’. The first three such mega-structures were identified in geophysical prospection in 2009 at the mega-site of Nebelivka, Kirovograd Domain, Ukraine. This article provides a preliminary report on the excavation of the largest mega-structure in the summer 2012 season. This building, covering an area of 600m2, must rank as one of the largest structures ever built in prehistoric Europe.