Trypillians

Psychological Prehistory

After dinner found us amiably chatting at a guttering fireplace when the details of Trypillian culture came up. It had been her speculation that my focus on building a fire at this time of year was not exactly pyromania, but an ancient resurfaced ethnic psychology I was powerless to avoid.

Or, it might have arisen from her tolerance of a low thermostat setting in this ancient, poorly insulated farm house, the heart and core of which was the eighteenth century fireplace. The upstairs, where the thermostat had been installed, was comfortable.

However, the ground floor and original bones of the structure where kitchen and dining rooms were located, was often closer to fifty than seventy Fahrenheit.

It was easy to bring up the relevant information on her Kindle as we sat rocking in century-scarred rockers from the same era as the house.

We were aware that a prehistoric cave site in nearby West Virginia had yielded remains radiocarbon dated to 710 AD. The shock was, that DNA analysis of tooth root tissue suggested an individual more closely related to Europeans than Native Americans. Runes etched on a nearby wall of the same cave, if related to the remains, further supported this suggestion that pre-Columbian visitors to West Virginia, arose in Europe a few hundred years prior to Leif Erikson’s Vineland colony (~980 AD).

This may have been careless paleological speculation, but it was interesting nevertheless. The Trypillian culture of Eastern Europe was notable for pedestalled pottery as well as mass dwelling sites looking very much like early cities.

The key cultural feature that had tuned up in several Cucutenic-Trypillian (5,000-3,000 BCE) excavations in Romania and Ukraine, was that foundations of urban dwellings seemed to show evidence of intentional conflagations at consistent intervals of time, about 60-70 years apart.

Some speculate that this routine burning of dwellings inadvertently reduced the incidence of plague and other late Stone Age-early Bronze Age epidemics. Thus, my inclination sometimes worried her but she tolerated it so long as it was confined to the firebox.

***
The point of the evening was not prehistory but something more immediate and unexpected.

The telephone interrupted our discussion.

“Hello, Barbara? Hi, how are you…” I could make out from the next room.

“Sure, we’ll be right up…”

We dressed with outdoor clothing, not worrying about appearance, and drove to the top of the driveway past ice and snowbanks piled up from a previous hard snow, then headed up the access road to our oldest neighbors.

“She said come into the garage,” she mentioned as we pulled up and I yanked up the parking brake.

“Hello? Hello?”

There was no answer and given the emergency nature of the phone call, this was ominous.

***

Bill had fallen asleep in the bathroom, and Barbara his wife, was not strong enough to raise him to a wheelchair and help him back to bed.

Among the three of us, he was awakened, hoisted to the chair, wheeled to bed and transferred without much trouble.

I was surprised how heavy he was for such a short, slender man.

The emergency over, we returned home only later continuing the discussion we had begun.

Curious what comes of eyes staring into the warm cinders and glowing embers on a chilly February evening, much like all the cumulative spirits of prior ages at this same hearth over the centuries in this Virginia farm house.