The Capability Approach and Archaeological Interpretation of Transformations: On the Role of Philosophy for Archaeology

1 Introduction

Archaeological interpretation has a long and distinguished history of making use of analogies from anthropological and ethnographic case studies to help interpret the archaeological record. Philosophical theories and insights, while having a strong history of metatheoretical work in archaeology, have been far less used as interpretative aids. There should, and can, be a concept of the significance of philosophy for archaeology that is more empirical in its implications. This should not and does not have to mean a lack of metatheoretical depth. Writing as an interdisciplinary team consisting of a philosopher and archaeologists, this article endeavours to pursue metatheory with empirically meaningful outputs.

This is not to say that ideas that originate in philosophy have not been vigorously debated in archaeology. The on-going debate about the many facets of the post-humanist philosophy in archaeology testifies that philosophical ideas are causing a big stir in archaeology (Harris & Cipolla, 2017; for critical takes on the original positions, see e.g. Barrett, 2022; Ribeiro, 2021). Going further back, early thinkers operating at the interface between philosophy and archaeology were R. G. Collingwood and G. V. Childe (see Leach, 2012; Sherratt, 1989). Later, in the days of the New Archaeology, archaeologists debated the nature of explanation based on the then-contemporary philosophy of science (e.g. Salmon, 1982). Elsewhere, Foucaultian and Marxist philosophical ideas inspired a great deal of processual and post-processual theory (Miller & Tilley, 1984; Trigger, 1993) while phenomenological philosophy inspired landscape archaeology (see e.g. Ingold, 2000), and the concept of agency stemming historically from Wittgensteinian practice theory (via Bourdieu 1977; Giddens, 1976, 1984; for an overview, see Schatzki et al., 2001) also made rounds in archaeology (Robb & Dobres, 2000), to give some examples. Also, there is Alison Wylie’s remarkable output on a wide variety of philosophical issues in anthropology and related topics (see e.g. Wylie, 2002), most recently in Chapman and Wylie (2016).

Yet, symptomatic of perhaps not all, but a good deal of philosophy in archaeology, is the extensive metatheoretical nature of the debate. By metatheory, we can understand the debate that discusses, compares, and contrasts different theoretical positions with one another in terms of their explicit or implicit philosophical or other orientations. This once provoked John Bintliff (2011) to suspect “the death of archaeological theory,” that is, that archaeological theory tended to be too focused on metatheoretical discussion rather than “providing convincing matching of concepts to recovered material evidence” (see also Johnson, 2006). A case in point might be the debate between the phenomenologists Ingold (2005) and Tilley (2005) where an archaeological book review descends into a debate about philosophical principles basically devoid of archaeological content. Archaeological theory seems to easily forget that archaeology is centrally an empirical science.

Against the foregoing background, in this article, we will discuss the significance and use of insights from the so-called Capability Approach to the interpretation of transformations in prehistory. The aim is to illustrate how a philosophical idea can have a robust empirical input into archaeology while also providing a solid metatheoretical debate. We follow Chapman and Wylie (2016, Chapter 1) in how they conceptualise the connection of the empirical and conceptual dimensions of analysis in their concept of evidential reasoning in archaeology as the process of mapping empirical data with interpretations in the light of various background warrants, bridging assumptions, and the like (following Toulmin, 1985). In addition, when it comes to introducing new theoretical perspectives to archaeology as we take ourselves to be doing with the Capability Approach (more on existing work in this area below), there is a certain special evidential and empirical burden of showing, at least to some extent, how the “newcomer” theory does things differently and leads to contrasting insights from the established approaches. In the course of the article, we raise a number of points in terms of which the incorporation of the Capability Approach has us, on the one hand, epistemologically order empirical data, in particular useful ways (e.g. Table 1 and the discussion), and, on the other hand, how it makes visible and calls to question certain lines of interpretation and their background assumptions (e.g. the action versus havings-based concepts of well-being; the causal direction of human development).

2 What is the Capability Approach?

The Capability Approach derives from the work of the philosopher and economist Amartya Sen. Sen’s first writings on the topic began to appear in the late 1970s (Sen, 1980, 1987) and since then the body of literature has grown larger and larger (Clark, 2005; Robeyns, 2005; Sen, 1992, 1999, 2002). The concept of human welfare developed by Sen is today used as the theoretical basis for the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI). In 1998, Sen received the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on poverty and welfare.

The Capability Approach builds upon the basic idea that “human life [is] a set of doings and beings” and therefore that the “the evaluation of the quality of life” must essentially involve “the assessment of the capability to function,” that is of capability to do and be something in life (Sen, 2012, p. 43). We can speak of an action-based approach and an enquiry into people’s opportunities and perspectives in life as fundamental to their well-being. As the HDI puts the basic idea behind the Capability Approach: “people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone.”^[1] The notions of welfare and well-being have been used to signal an action-based, post-material, or non-material approach to value that goes beyond the classic utilitarian concept (Cohen, 1993).

Central to the approach is the distinction between the material and other means that enable and facilitate human action – the having or possession of material means – and the human capabilities to lead active lives as ends of human aspirations. In this sense, Sen argues, poverty is not harmful and undesirable simply as a lack of material and other means of human life, but it is precisely and fundamentally harmful to human welfare because it restricts human opportunities and perspectives to pursue valuable ends, that is, it restricts the scope for different kinds of action. In this respect, Sen’s ideas reflect, on the one hand, certain Aristotelian philosophical ideas about human flourishing and good life as (virtuous) activity over the course of life and, on the other hand, certain ideas of Marx about humans realising themselves in and through (productive) activity (Aristotle, 2000; Marx & Engels, 1969; Sen, 2012).

In our terminology, we speak of capability deprivations when individuals’ and groups’ opportunities and perspectives are shrinking and, conversely, we speak of capability expansions and capability affordances when these are increasing. Having opportunities and perspectives in life means the potential availability of meaningful action options. In addition, some of the Capabilities-based work in archaeology prefers to speak of the quality of life and human well-being (see below), something of which Capabilities expansions and deprivations are a crucial aspect.

Despite a prominent track record elsewhere, the Capability Approach has arrived in archaeology only rather recently (Arponen et al., 2016; Arponen, 2016a,b; Hutson, 2023; Munson & Scholnick, 2022; Müller et al., 2017a; Oka et al., 2018; Smith, 2019; Vésteinsson et al., 2019). As Kohler and Smith (2018, p. 24) note, while “[a]rchaeologists have begun to explore approaches to measuring inequality of life or well-being,” but this “work is still in its initial phases.” The present article is an effort to continue and expand that work.

Given Sen’s distinction between forms of activity and participation in collective action as the ends and various material and other means that can be understood to facilitate action, the challenge for archaeology is to use the static material record to reconstrue dimensions of the dynamic activity behind it. In other words, the challenge is to think beyond the distribution and the diachronic variation of material indicators to the implications of these as regards the human capability for action. As such, the Capability Approach provides an interesting theoretical alternative to hierarchy, technological development, and cultural evolution-focused understandings of human development (see Wunderlich, 2019, Chapter 2, discussed below; also Arponen & Ohlrau, 2023). We will discuss this in more detail below.

In what follows, we will first discuss the application of the Capability Approach in some selected contexts of archaeological interpretation pertaining to technology and identity on the one hand and social organisation on the other. We will then present a model of dimensions, analytic levels, and associated archaeological indicators in terms of which the Capability Approach could be operationalised for archaeological interpretation. We illustrate this with case study materials pertaining to the Cucuteni-Trypillia societies (5050–2950 BCE). We close with a brief concluding discussion of the metatheoretical and empirical nature of our contribution.

3 Capabilities, Technology, and Identity

The Capability Approach may have implications with regard to the interpretation of the adoption, or indeed non-adoption, of technologies.

In a case study from the Northern Central Europe in the Neolithic, Brozio et al. (2023) recently observed that

on the Northern European Plain and in Southern Scandinavia, copper deposits had not been exploited during the Neolithic or Bronze Age in the area, so that any raw material would have to have been imported. This also applies to the island of Helgoland, whose flint was transported to the mainland in the Neolithic, but there is no evidence that the island’s copper resources were exploited in the Neolithic.

The authors identify the sources of North European copper to most likely reside far further in the South, in today’s Serbia. The same phenomena are known from other studies, for example, Danish flat axes having their material source in Serbian mining areas (see Brozio et al., 2023, p. 18).

At the same time, Brozio et al. observe that there is evidence of knowledge of copper processing techniques in these areas (Brozio et al., 2023, p. 18). This raises the question why, despite the availability of the requisite resources and the apparent presence of knowledge of processing techniques, did the North Central Europeans not adopt copper working?

The processes of adopting technologies are likely to be highly complex and historically contextual. The Capability Approach would encourage us to interpret the refusal of copper technologies in Northern Central Europe to reside in the perceived or real lack of effects of the adoption of capability expansion. There is wide-spread evidence from North Central Europe that the period in question saw wide-spread labour-intensive clearing of forests. It may be that collective identities in the region were construed around such activities and that therefore qualitatively very different activities centred around copper were actively culturally rejected. By contrast, in the case study of the Cucuteni-Trypillia societies, we discuss further down below, the capability expansions deriving from the introduction of technologies seemingly enabled these technologies an entry into the lives of these people or found a place in that form of life.

These processes may further relate to certain implications of collective versus more individualistic forms of social organisation. If we associate new technologies and their adoption with aspiring, aggrandising warrior aristocratic elites (Earle & Kristiansen, 2010) and, conversely, connect the continuation of established practices with more collective or egalitarian forms, then the Northern Central European aversion to technological change may be seen as relating to this contrast in forms of social organisation. In our Cucuteni-Trypillia case study below, we observe a different transformation in which the egalitarian or communal form of organisation, at least initially, persists over and tempers the impact of technological change.

The interpretations presented here relate to a broader debate about the nature of identity. In archaeology and beyond, identity is typically conceived “ideationally” as a sort of mental adherence to culturally specific ways of symbolic representation deriving from the underlying and wide-spread anthropological concept of culture: “Culture is here essentially a matter of ideas and values, a collective cast of mind” (Kuper, 2000, p. 227). That is to say, culture and cultural difference is a matter of “perceived similarities and differences that are socially recognized as important” (Peeples, 2018, p. 6). However, from the perspective of Capability Approach influenced thought, identity should be essentially and strongly connected to actual ways of doing and being beyond mere collective symbolic representations (see Arponen, 2015; Arponen & Ribeiro, 2014, 2018).

4 Capabilities and Social Organisation

In a case study from somewhere altogether different, Wunderlich (2019) discusses the megalith construction practices from an ethnographic perspective in contemporary India considering these insights in relation to megaliths in Northern Central European Neolithic.

Wunderlich discusses her case studies in the context of the wide-spread dualism in archaeological interpretation between egalitarian or collectivist (“corporate,” Feinman, 2001, or also heterarchical, Crumley, 1995, and anarchistic, Angelbeck & Grier, 2012) on the one hand and hierarchical or personalist forms of social organisation, on the other hand (Price & Feinman, 1995). In her case studies, she observes, both, personalist and collectivist elements at work, for example, in how the community is collectively empowered by joint building projects but how the projects can also be at the same time culturally associated with powerful individual sponsors (Wunderlich, 2019, p. 258).

Wunderlich’s work highlights the complex question of the role of different forms of social organisation and its archaeological signature. For example, functional and neo-evolutionary concepts (Wunderlich, 2019, Chapter 2) classically place robust economies, security, and resource availability at the centre of interpretation, thereby attributing a kind of natural preference for such resources. As Wunderlich notes, classic studies of monumentality (e.g. in Renfrew) cast them as markers of social and physical boundaries with a close relationship to important resources. From the evolutionary perspective, humans might indeed be seen to have a natural preference for bodily and resource security, and the adaptive advantages these might imply, which is classically seen as a function of available techniques, both political and technological – hence the classic broad concept of culture as “extra-somatic means of adaptation” (Binford, 1962).

Against such a theoretical background, the human history might appear as a process of increasing adaptation facilitated by various political and technological techniques from tools and equipment to methods of political control and the ideological reproduction of society – including monumentality as ultimately a complex social management technique. In a classic discussion, Johnson and Earle (1987, see Figure 1, p. 17) frame the question as one of the causal direction of the developmental trajectory. Their view is that social and cultural developments emerge as reactions to pressures from climatic and demographic factors – something to which the Capability Approach might offer a different perspective. In the European prehistory, the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, improving climatic conditions and resulting demographic growth, and the emerging lineages of elite control of new production processes, trade, and agriculture-based form of life have been proposed (Shennan, 2008). The overall trajectory proposed accords rather well with the broader critical historical story of the transformation towards modernity as a process of increasing exploitation of the earth’s natural and indeed also human resources with a long research tradition in environmental history and environmentalism (Klein, 2014; Merchant, 2017; White, 1967; for a critique, see Arponen, 2014).

The Capability Approach inspired thought has a complex relationship to such narratives that has hitherto not been worked out (for some ideas, see Arponen, 2016a,b). From the capability perspective, the question must at minimum be, what does such a narrative of increasing sophistication of political and technological adaptation mean with regard to fluctuations in underlying capability expansions and indeed capability deprivations? A bolder approach might be to consider the argument that perspectives of capability expansion can act as a pull factor for example of population agglomeration and from there as a driver of innovation (which relates to the question from Johnson and Earle (1987) above about the causal direction of human development). We discuss this point in more detail in the case study below.

A related question is, are hierarchical and personalist forms more or perhaps less conducive to capability expansion as compared to egalitarian collectivist forms of social organisation (Curry et al., 2019; Thurston, 2022)?

In a recent paper (Arponen & Ohlrau, 2023), we argued that personalist elite-focused systems are in archaeology often thought of as potentially highly successful, in part because they coincide with periods of human expansion such as the dynamic period of the European Neolithic to Bronze Age transformation (Earle & Kristiansen, 2010). In the contemporary world, by contrast, multiple weaknesses of personalist political systems are known and extensively documented in political science (Frantz, 2018; Geddes et al., 2018) as well as in striking recent cases of mismanagement and inefficiency in personalist-leaning administrations even in institutionally democratic states (Wolff, 2018; Woodward, 2020; Wright, 2019).

In archaeology, two kinds of critical reactions to interpretations of personalist systems in prehistory may be able to be distinguished. There are reactions that are sceptical that such systems could really have existed at least in the most radical forms arguing that power tends to work differently (Fontijn, 2021; Lund et al., 2022). Then, there are accounts that emphasise cases of resistance to and escape from hierarchies and domination (Angelbeck & Grier, 2012; Scott, 2009).

The Capability Approach would approach these questions from the perspective of how does one or the other social form deprive and expand people’s capabilities, their perspectives, and opportunities for action?

Archaeologically, such processes can be investigated by a comparative approach that compares developments in indicators of social forms with indicators of how well the group or society is doing otherwise. For example, as discussed above, in our paper on the Balkan Neolithic tell site Okolište (Arponen et al., 2016), we compared indicators of the settlement size with indicators of capabilities as shown in activity maps from various households in the settlement to argue that critical capability deprivations coincided with and suggested that they thus perhaps in part caused the settlement decline. In a parallel approach, Feinman and Carballo (2018) studied the correlation of settlement “apogee” – that is the temporal duration of the settlement’s highest population period – with the so-called “collectivity score” arguing that “[c]ollectively oriented cities in ancient Mesoamerica had longer apogees and larger maximal populations that support the hypothetical relationship between size/growth and collectivity” (see also Carballo et al., 2014).

In a different approach to the same question, suitable indicators might be able to be used to reconstrue prehistoric shifts in the expansion or decline of the “possibility frontier” of a given dimension of human action. Kerig et al. (2022) took such an approach to the “inequality possibility frontier” by devising a way of determining the excess distributable productivity beyond the subsistence necessity of a group or society. That “frontier” can then be considered as the scope within which resources can be unequally distributed. However, the same approach could be used to conceptualise the “capability frontier” of a society or group, that is, the “possibility space” that the social unit has available to pursue activities beyond necessities however exactly defined. Such a “capability frontier” could then be compared with indicators of the form of social organisation to possibly identify tendencies of one or the other form to expand or diminish human capability.

5 Capabilities: Towards An Archaeological Operationalisation

In this section, we sketch a conceptual scheme for operationalising the Capability Approach in archaeology. For reasons of interdisciplinary interoperability, our scheme sets out from the three top-level dimensions of human capability defined in the United Nations HDI. Moving down one level into archaeological matters, next the scheme considers each dimension in the analytic levels of community, household, and individual. The analytic levels have been adopted from Smith (2019; used also in Arponen et al., 2016) and represent archaeologically “known quantities.” Finally, in the last instance, each analytic level is assigned one or more archaeological indicators with some exemplified indicators provided in Table 1. On the highest level of outline, the scheme looks as follows (Table 1).

The dimension of health is most easily understood on the individual level by way of various archaeologically visible indicators of physical health. By the individual level indicator for health, we mean functional mortuary data (sensu Härke 1993) that can work as a cross-checking indicator for individual wealth markers that can otherwise be biased by the community adding grave goods to the burial context. The distribution of health, diet, and disease markers in contrast to the potential wealth disparities in grave goods was analysed, for example, by Fuchs (2020) for the northern Caucasus. Looking at the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age (2200–1650 BCE), she observed that although there is a marked social inequality signalled in the burial goods, living conditions were similar for the different status groups. This underscores the importance of considering a variety of independent indicators for evaluating well-being and inequalities.

On the household level, a straightforward example would be the distribution of sanitation and drainage, water, and waste management (Angelakis & Rose, 2014). Here, the Indus civilisation sites are a classic example (Arnott, 2024). Complementarily, the concepts of critical resources and critical capabilities were made use of by Arponen et al. (2016). Critical resources pertain to such human essentials or “basic needs” as subsistence and clothing and hold a special place as deprivation in these areas would cause physical deprivations and therefore capability deprivations in terms of possibilities of action. In the Okolište case, this was investigated by the distribution of mill stones, silex tools, and loom weights.

Community-level health can be indicated by the population dynamics. The health and prosperity of a population can be understood by looking at the ratio of births to deaths over a specific period. It is important to differentiate between reproductive strategies that involve having more children versus fewer, even if the effort put into raising them remains the same. If resources remain constant while the population grows, it indicates an overall increase in societal prosperity. The dimensions of Standard of Living and Knowledge are more complex categories to define.

In our understanding of the Standard of Living, we depart from the concept of wealth as understood in the classic utilitarian, material sense. Yet, in line with Sen’s critique of the material concept of wealth in favour of an action-based, post-material, or non-material concept, we also understand wealth accordingly to comprise various aspects beyond the material. A stimulating starting point here is the recent work in archaeology on different forms of wealth. In an influential work, Borgerhoff Mulder et al. (2009), and more recently Beck and Quinn (2022), illustrated the value of recognising and studying variations in relational and embodied wealth alongside the more traditional material wealth. We argue that the concepts of relational and embodied wealth can be meaningfully related to, and in fact imply, the core insight of the Capability Approach, namely, that human well-being and quality of life essentially involve being capable of operating within social or relational networks and partly by way of embodied skills and know-how.

As Sen argued, the richness of human life resides in the relational and social capabilities to do and be something in life, rather than in merely possessing material goods. A parallel approach to examining the archaeological preconditions of human capability in the so-called human securities has been developed by Hegmon (2016), Hegmon et al. (2018), and Ortman (2016), work that also traces back to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP, 1994).

In the HDI, in modern contexts, Knowledge is characterised by levels of education. Depending on time and space, this can be hard to observe archaeologically. Here, we define Knowledge as institutionalised systems of interaction or interrelation. This includes the presence or degree of specialisation and craft production, as well as the organisation of labour and knowledge transfer (see e.g. Costin, 1991), or decision-making. On a community level, this can be the presence of collective features such as enclosures, plazas, or meeting halls, and exclusionary features as for example elite residences, temples, or palaces (see Carballo & Feinman 2016, Table 1). A capability aspect here is the access to Knowledge and its localisation and concentration. Hence, we use in our case study below the ratio between institutions and households as a communal Knowledge indicator.

The distinction between Knowledge as evoking something institutionalised and Standard of Living as forms of resource or wealth can be correlated with the sociological categories of different forms of capital. Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of social and cultural capital invoke the distinction between social capital as institutionalised and cultural capital as a sort of know-how about how to operate in various dimensions of cultural life (Bourdieu, 1986). Generally including in Bourdieu, the concepts of social and cultural are not typically systematically distinguished from one another. Similarly, in archaeology, no systematic distinction is made between social and economic inequality. In our view “the social” can be understood to denote in some way institutionalised aspects of human political organisation while “the cultural” denotes representational and embodied cultural resources. In this sense, power could be both “cultural” in the representational realm of the trappings of power, and “social” in the dimension of the institutional organisation. The notion of “the economic” can be reserved for material distributional differentiation as in the classic archaeology of inequality focused on the (mal)distributions of material culture. We introduce these ideas as conceptual recommendations as to how order could be brought to the otherwise fairly wild use of the notions of the “social” and “cultural.”

Finally, in the Capability Approach literature, one contentious issue has been whether any definite lists of capabilities can and should be provided (Claassen, 2011; Nussbaum, 2016). Such a list would obviously be handy and of interest for the purposes of the archaeological operationalisation. However, we follow Sen in arguing that relevant capabilities are best thought of as contextual to the historical situation at hand such that definitive lists may not be helpful and, at worst, represent instances of the imposition of interpretative schemes that stem from particular historical contexts and are ill-suited in others. Also, considerable intersectionality (Crenshaw, 2017; Walby, 2007) may pertain to indicators of capability such that some deprivations reinforce each other while other affordances perhaps rectify deprivations elsewhere.

We suggest (already in Arponen et al., 2016) that research designs are devised such that developments as regards some sets of indicators are cross-checked with developments in others. The purpose of the exercise is to ascertain that for example capability deprivations in some areas really did lead to (or at least coincide with) negative developments elsewhere. For example, in Arponen et al. (2016) critical resources and capability deprivations were cross-checked and related to data on the decline of the settlement population and size which were found to coincide. In a parallel manner, in Feinman and Carballo (2018) data on collectivist tendencies e.g. in architecture in studied societies were cross-checked against data on the apogee of these groups to ascertain that collectivism may have had beneficial effects on the society as a whole. We close this article with an account of the implications of the Capability Approach for understanding the transformation of the Cucuteni-Trypillia societies, 5050–2950 BCE.

6 Case Study: Cucuteni-Trypillia 5050–2950 BCE

Cucuteni-Trypillia (ca. 5050–2950 BCE) is considered the last great cultural phenomenon of the archaeological complexes of the Southeast European Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. This complex stretches from the Transylvanian Plateau and the Eastern Carpathians to the Middle Dnipro River, extending along the forest steppe and into the Southwestern Pontic steppe region (Figure 1). Sites can be found in present-day Romania, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine. Cucuteni-Trypillia is renowned for its large, ring-shaped settlements, which covered up to 320 ha and contained up to almost 3,000 dwellings, with populations ranging from a probable 6,000 to a maximum of 17,000 inhabitants in the largest site. Notable characteristics include the high quality of painted ceramics, figurative art (Monah, 2016), and a longstanding tradition of burning dwellings (Chapman, 1999).

Figure 1

The distribution of the Cucuteni-Trypillia complex with the location of sites mentioned in the text. Base map after Natural Earth Data (License CC0) and Ecoregions 2017 (License CC-BY 4.0) for the distribution of the steppe and forest steppe.

The complex is named after the two eponymous sites: Cucuteni-Cetăţuia in Romania (Schmidt, 1932) and Trypillia (Ukrainian: Tpипілля; Russian: Tpипoльe) in Ukraine near Kyiv (Khvoyka, 1901). While subsumed under the term Cucuteni-Trypillia, researchers often include related complexes such as Precucuteni (Marinescu-Bîlcu, 1974; Vulpe, 1957), Ariuşd (Sztáncsuj, 2015), and Usatove (Ukrainian: Ycaтoвe; Russian: Ycaтoвo) or Horodiştea-Erbiceni, Folteşti, and Gordineşti (Dergachev, 1980, 2022) in its overall development. This results in an archaeological tradition spanning over two millennia, emerging in the developed Neolithic and culminating in the transition to kurgan-building communities of the Early Bronze Age.

Due to the vast distribution and regional developments of the Cucuteni-Trypillia complex, and its periodisation based on stylistic variation, the absolute chronology is prone to a certain amount of fuzziness. The Cucuteni distribution in Romania has been dated by Lazarovici (2010, p. 74), who reconstructs a time span from 5050 to 3150 BCE, whereas early Precucuteni remains poorly dated. Diachenko, Harper, and colleagues adopted a regional approach to the absolute chronology, which is presented here in a simplified form (see Diachenko & Harper, 2016; Diachenko et al., 2024; Harper et al., 2021; Harper, 2021). Recent dating for the late middle Trypillia Kosenivska group by Shatilo (2021) shifts the end of the middle Trypillia phase from ca. 3300 to 3550 BCE. This results in a basic chronology (Figure 2) where Precucuteni I dates to 5050/4800–4750/4700 BCE, Precucuteni II and Trypillia AII to 4750/4700–4500/4450 BCE, and Precucuteni III and Trypillia AIII to 4650–4350 BCE. The middle phase is dated by Trypillia BI (4450–3900 BCE), Trypillia BII (4100–3750 BCE), and Trypillia CI (3950–3550 BCE). The late phase is represented only by Trypillia CII, dating to 3650/3550–2950 BCE.

Figure 2

The current chronology for the Cucuteni-Trypillia complex derived from Diachenko and Harper (2016), Diachenko et al. (2024), Harper (2021), Harper et al. (2021), and Shatilo (2021).

The subsistence economy of the Cucuteni-Trypillia communities included agriculture and animal husbandry, with draft animals already being used for sledges and potentially for ploughing with an ard (Figure 3). The introduction of the wheel and four-wheeled cart is believed to have occurred in the late period (CII, 3650/3550–2950 BCE), after the end of the large settlements (see e.g. Rassamakin, 2002, p. 52). The plant economy was based on cereals, pulses, and gathered plants (Kirleis & Dal Corso, 2016; Kirleis et al., 2023; Schlütz et al., 2023; Pashkevich & Videjko, 2006), while livestock primarily included cattle, sheep/goats, and pigs (Makarewicz et al., 2022; Zhuravlyov, 2008). Dairy products were likely used, as indicated by the faunal record of slaughtered calves and the ratio between sub-adult and adult kill-off estimates (Makarewicz et al., 2022, p. 7). Sieving vessels are also known starting from Precucuteni times (Marinescu-Bîlcu, 1974). According to stable isotope analysis, intensive cultivation of legumes in gardens inside settlements, with the addition of animal manure, likely took place alongside extensive farming (Schlütz et al., 2023). There is currently no evidence for irrigation. Isotope studies indicate that sheep at Maidanets’ke were pastured on open grasslands, while at Nebelivka, livestock foraged in lightly canopied woodland (Makarewicz et al., 2022; Orton et al., 2020). Makarewicz et al. (2022) argue for a dual pasturing system at Maidanets’ke, visible in the nitrogen isotope signals of cattle remains. Some cattle were likely grazing in larger herds on pasture regularly receiving manure, interpreted as restricted pastureland possibly close to or within the settlement. Other cattle showed low nitrogen isotope values, suggesting extensive herding of dispersed livestock on various pastures. Pigs showed high nitrogen values, indicating feeding in anthropogenic environments, likely related to waste management (Makarewicz et al., 2022, p. 13). Food web analysis indicates a diet heavily based on crops, with meat consumption accounting for approximately 10% (Schlütz et al., 2023).

Figure 3

Clay miniature sledge model with a pair of oxen found in Talianki after Kruts and colleagues (2013).

The reconstruction of social organisation within the Cucuteni-Trypillia groups has been closely related to research on their settlement systems (Figure 4). Egalitarian notions were developed based on the uniformity in house construction (Chernovol, 2012). With the renewed geophysical survey programme (Chapman et al., 2014a), architectural details for thousands of dwellings at various settlements became available beyond traditional excavation methods (Pickartz et al., 2019; Rassmann et al., 2014, 2016). These house data have since been used to reconstruct low levels of inequality (Hofmann et al., 2024a). High-resolution surveys revealed the presence of special-purpose buildings, or so-called megastructures (Chapman et al., 2014b; Ohlrau & Rud, 2019; Rassmann et al., 2014). These buildings were evenly distributed along the main ring corridor and in plazas near the centres of the sites (Hofmann et al., 2019). After the excavation of some of these structures, communal functions were proposed. While similar activities to those in regular dwellings took place within these buildings, certain activities, such as cereal processing or weaving, were more intensive (Figure 5). The absence of domed hearths, common in regular houses, suggests that these buildings were not used as dwellings.

Figure 4

Regular settlements and mega-sites of the Cucuteni-Trypillia complex. Plans derived from Chapman et al. (2014b), Hofmann et al. (2016), Ohlrau (2020a), and Rassmann et al. (2014, 2016).

Figure 5

Features of regular dwellings and special-purpose buildings in the Magnetogram and their burned daub distribution in excavation after Pickartz et al. (2019) and reconstructed activities within a special-purpose building after Hofmann et al. (2019).

In conclusion, the mega-sites can be seen as consisting of up to 20 segmented districts of roughly equal size, based on the distribution of special-purpose buildings. Together with the pattern of smaller sites, such as Moshuriv (7 ha, Figure 4), where a special-purpose building was also identified, this suggests a decentralised social organisation (Hofmann et al., 2019; Ohlrau, 2020a). However, there is no evidential basis for a sequence in which these buildings were active, as proposed in Graeber and Wengrow (2021, p. 295) or in the distributed governance model of Gaydarska (2021), which assumes sequential changes in responsibilities for the various districts. With this introduction to the case study and the debate on the egalitarian lifeways of Cucuteni-Trypillia societies, we can now dive deeper into the topic of capabilities and wellbeing.

7 Cucuteni-Trypillia and Capabilities

Extensive research by European and Ukrainian archaeologists has yielded substantial findings on these societies (Gaydarska, 2020; Hofmann et al., 2019; Müller et al., 2016a, 2017a, 2017b; Ohlrau, 2020a; Rassmann et al., 2014; Shatilo, 2021). Through this renewed international research effort, it has been possible to reconstruct the cross-regional population dynamics (Harper et al., 2019; Harper, 2019), the number of communal infrastructures on-site (Hofmann et al., 2019), and the occupational span of a representative number of settlements (Hofmann et al., 2024a; Ohlrau, 2020a; Shatilo, 2021). With these insights available, we apply our analytical framework to identify the following dimensions, levels of analysis, and indicators in our case study (Table 2).

8 Method and Data

In the health dimension, at the community level of analysis, we estimated relative population fluctuations over time (Figure 6). Conceptually, the health dimension is the easiest to grasp at the individual level in terms of bodily health indicators. However, for the Cucuteni-Trypillia societies, the individual level remains hard to grasp as burial data are scarce or do not exist for large stretches of the cultural development (Fuchs et al., 2023). Burial mound-related funerary practices emerge in late Trypillia (CII 3650/3550–2950 BCE) after the end of the mega-site phenomenon. While the burial practice of the main phase remains a problem of the evidence of absence, one could speculate about the importance of health and hygiene among Cucuteni-Trypillia groups, given this very absence of inhumations. Few but frequent cranial finds may hint at excarnation or the very prominent use of fire at possible funerary pyres, though not in the burned houses. With the evidence being so anecdotal, we decided to not include it in this study.

Figure 6

Time series of archaeological capability indicators and their temporal relation to the technological innovation horizon.

As a result of the absence of the individual level in the Health dimension, we propose the settlement size and relative population fluctuation as a community-level health indicator. A principal difficulty is, as Smith (2019, p. 498) remarks, steep population increase can be seen unfavourable for the sustainability of societies. Generally, population growth may imply worsening Health (Wittwer-Backofen & Tomo, 2008). Rascovan et al. (2019) proposed for example that the mega-sites were a main hub for the distribution of Yersinia pestis into Europe. Available data for the region, however, do not show any evidence of Y. pestis (Immel et al., 2020, p. 4).

While the ratio of births to deaths is not directly available for Cucuteni-Trypillia societies, we can draw on the uniformity in house construction. While sizes might vary and we see the emergence of raised floor dwellings (or two-storied houses as they are sometimes called), there is no relevant change in the room structure from single-family dwellings to multi-compound structures or the like. Specifically, we argue that when more houses are built with the same design, as in our case (Figure 7; Chernovol, 2021), it suggests that family structure and the per capita effort into raising children did not change, but instead that there are more people overall.

Figure 7

Types of Cucuteni-Trypillia dwellings modified after Chernovol (2021).

We follow Harper et al. (2019, 2021) and their dataset by using settlement size in hectares as the indicator for population size. This is a traditional approach established, e.g. settlements of Southwest Asia (see Drennan et al., 2015; Zorn, 1994, pp. 20–25). Even while direct population estimates have been undertaken for several larger and smaller sites (Ohlrau, 2020a,b, 2022), the data quality for the total sequence of Cucuteni-Trypillia sites does not allow us to transfer these insights to all types of settlements, especially for the earliest and later sites. As we are not operating with concepts that demand absolute population numbers, the relative amount of settlement space will suffice for this analysis.

There are currently several datasets on Cucuteni-Trypillia settlement parameters (Ohlrau, 2020a; Shatilo, 2021; Videiko et al., 2004) of which Harper et al.’s (2019) Eastern European Neo-Eneolithic Sites Repository (EENSR) is the most comprehensive as it includes data not only from Ukraine but also from Romania and Moldova. Using the EENSR as a basis, we updated and added entries according to the large-scale surveys conducted since the dataset was assembled (see supplement). These updates include adjusted settlement sizes listed in Hofmann et al. (2019, Table 1) and chronological phasing of sites such as Stolniceni I (Ţerna et al., 2019), Maidanets’ke (Ohlrau, 2020a) and Talianki (Shatilo, 2021), as well as whole local variants (e.g. Kosenivska local group) according to Shatilo (2021).

To avoid overestimating contemporary populations, we segmented the data into 50-year intervals (from 4800 to 2950 BCE, see chronology above) and employed the aoristic method (Mischka, 2004; Ratcliffe, 2000) to distribute settlement sizes across the time intervals per settlement occupation span noted in the EENSR (Figure 8). Here, the duration of settlements is divided by 50-year intervals. These 50 years have traditionally been the assumed to be total duration of Trypillia sites (Kruts, 1989; Diachenko, 2012), but are now more related to the apogee of these settlements. The settlement size is divided by the number of these intervals. For each time slice, the coeval number of hectares is summed up. As a result, the data reveal relative population growth between 4150 and 4050 BCE and again between 3950 and 3850 BCE, with a decline during 3650–3550 BCE (Figure 6, population indicator).

Figure 8

Scheme of the applied aoristic method on the distribution of occupied space in Cucuteni-Trypillia settlements.

Moving on to the Standard of Living dimension, at the household level, we have data on residence stability, specifically household duration. For the application of the Capability Approach, the average persistence of households per time unit is chosen as an indicator for perspectives on the life of the inhabitants. The longer the period of residence, the better communities and households can develop “relational” wealth (Beck & Quinn, 2022; Borgerhoff Mulder et al., 2009) by becoming integrated and interconnected with local and non-local networks of various kinds. However, as Smith (2019) notes, depending on the social status of the household, low residential mobility could indicate a low social mobility, which in our framework could indicate capability deprivation. As Furholt et al. (2020) argue, high residential mobility may suggest freedom to avoid social tension and hence expand or secure capability. Here, again, we urge cross-checking the indicator with other independent data on household wealth and integration to account for potential misinterpretations.

For the Cucuteni-Trypillia case, we argue that a standard dwelling is likely to represent a household as depicted in clay-made house models (e.g. Gusev, 1995; Trenner, 2010). Such clay models are realistic depictions of the archaeological house remains we find in the settlements (Chernovol, 2012, 2021) and indicate the various functions and activities present in the single households (Figure 9).

Figure 9

Cucuteni-Trypillia house models from different mega-sites. (a and b) Volodymirivka; (c) Rozsokhuvatka; and (d) Sushkivka (after Ohlrau, 2015).

Besides educated guesses, the use-life of the wattle-and-daub architectures has remained elusive until recently. Since formal chronological modelling of house contexts from Uivar – Gomilă (Draşovean et al., 2017; Schier & Draşovean, 2020), house use-life spans are narrowed down to 1–80 years with considerable variation within this timeframe. Our estimate in this article is based on formal chronological modelling of radiocarbon dates for selected settlements (see Table 3; a detailed study is in preparation: Ohlrau, Piezonka, and Müller submitted). No significant changes in household duration are evident in the sequence from Nebelivka to Maidanets’ke and Talianki (Figure 6, house duration indicator).

Also, on the community level of the Standard of Living dimension, we observe the emergence of various technological innovations expanding capabilities in a horizon between 4350 and 3850 BCE (Figure 6). Innovations affect the human potential to act and as such can represent capability expansions (Burmeister & Müller-Scheeßel, 2013; Burmeister, 2017; Feinman, 2021; Uhl, 2023). Technical innovations have the potential to massively increase opportunities for those who have the abilities to use these techniques – yet, also, technological development may lead to disenfranchisement of parts of the population. In either case, by increasing the efficiency of, e.g. subsistence activities, more time becomes available to pursue other activities (expanding “Möglichkeitsräume” or “opportunity spaces”). Hence, there is an expansion of capability. However, as already mentioned, access to such abilities needs to be clarified before making statements about capability affordances or deprivations. Also, from another perspective, an increase in efficiency can lead to a decrease in participation for some part of the group, as not as many individuals might be needed to carry out the activity (which may relate to the disintegration of “corporate” groups; compare Hayden & Cannon, 1982). Moreover, there is the question of who might be able to extract labour from this added amount of societal “free” time (Kerig et al., 2022). This ambiguity is again an argument for the application of the proposed cross-checking approach.

For our case study, we identify four innovations that had the potential to affect capabilities, namely, intensified textile production via standardised spindle whorls and the warp-weighted loom, the potential potter’s hand wheel or Tournette, the multi-channel updraft kiln, and animal traction with an implication for the plough (Figure 10).

Figure 10

Archaeological artefacts related to animal traction and the potential plough. (1) Reconstruction of a pair of harnessed oxen after Markevich (1981, Figure 97, 6). (2) Stone slab from Vărvăreuca XV after Markevich (1981, Figure 95). (3) Clay zoomorphic figurine with harness ornamentation after Balabina (1998, Figure 34, 1). (4) Excavated pottery kiln from Maidanets’ke after Ohlrau (2020a, Figure 28).

Animal traction and potentially the ard was introduced around 4350–3950 BCE (Ţurcanu & Bejenaru, 2015), while the potter’s hand wheel or tournette likely emerged between 4350 and 3850 BCE (Cucoş, 1999; Ellis, 1984; Lazarovici et al., 2009; Markevich, 1981). The multi-channel, updraft kiln also emerged around 4150–3850 BCE (Alaiba, 2007; Cerna et al., 2017; Korvin-Piotrovskiy et al., 2016; Ţerna et al., 2019; Țerna et al., 2022). While looms where known since the beginning of the Cucuteni-Trypillia phenomenon, their standardisation and the emergence of the vertical loom dates between 4350 and 3850 BCE (Müller et al., 2016b; Ohlrau 2020a; Uhl, 2023, p. 260; Videyko, 2017, p. 122).

Next, we consider the Knowledge dimension. An integral aspect of the Capability Approach is the focus on people’s ability to participate in social matters. In the Knowledge dimension, at the community level of analysis, we have data on the communal architectural organisation of the settlement (Hofmann et al., 2019, Table 1). The differentiation between regular dwellings and so-called megastructures or ring buildings and assembly houses is a crucial part of the debate around the reconstruction of Trypillia societies (Chapman et al., 2014b; Hofmann et al., 2019). These mega-structures or ring buildings are regularly distributed throughout the settlements at distinct public places (Figure 4). Smaller ones which are located along the circular and radial pathways include material remains that infer regular activities found in regular households, such as textile or food production, only in exaggerated quantities (Hofmann et al., 2019). While open fireplaces are found in these structures, they are not comparable to the domed hearths of regular households. Therefore, it is assumed that these buildings were not permanently inhabited. Due to their even distribution throughout the settlements, they can be interpreted as communal institutions relevant for a limited number of surrounding neighbourhoods (or house clusters).

Larger, so-called megastructures are found on plazas set off from the main settlement ring and show an elaborate inventory of regular households, but also artefacts indicating long-distance relations, among them gold. Finds of animal bones and a shelf of drinking vessels suggest collective activities for an unknown size of participants (Gaydarska, 2020). Nevertheless, there are no features or artefacts found in these structures which would indicate significance beyond the settlements themselves (Ohlrau, 2022). Within settlements, these structures represent communal institutions rather than elite buildings.

The roots of these buildings can be found at the Moldavian Plateau at the Precucuteni (4800–4650 BCE) settlement of Baia - În Muchie (Hofmann et al., 2016; Ursu & Ţerna, 2015). Baia - În Muchie presents the initial point of reference for participation in the prelude of Cucuteni-Trypillia societies. Here, the ratio of households per institution is only 9:1. Between these early data and the sequence beginning during Trypillia BI (4450–3900 BCE), we observe a lack of information for now. Therefore, the indicator for participation is given for the time span where we observe a complete sequence. One of the caveats of using the ratio between household and special buildings is that not all sites are surveyed completely and that the internal chronology of the settlements is not considered here. Given that the number of houses and special-purpose buildings without chronological differentiation and at least 25% of the sites were recovered, as they are circo-radial in layout, on average still represents a feasible measure for the relation between households and institutions.

Taking the available data into account (Hofmann et al., 2019, Table 1), we observe an improvement in participation between 4200 and 4000 BCE (Figure 6, participation indicator). After 4000 BCE, with the increase of houses integrated by institutions over the course of the Cucuteni-Trypillia development, we see a steady deterioration of household participation in the affairs of the settlements. This reflects the general narrative of the decline of large Trypillia societies at the end of Trypillia C1 (3650–3550 BCE) as mentioned above.

9 Results and Discussion

Given these observations, the following interpretation of the indicators has been developed. We generally see a socio-political management narrative reflected in the communal spatial organisation and architecture of settlements, which we track as “Participation.” This concept extends from pre-mega-site times into the mega-site period and faces challenges from technological innovations during the mega-site era, yet it persists. The interaction of participation with other indicators yields several insights.

We observe that participation can seemingly mitigate the effects of technological innovation in inequality, something where for example Bogaard et al. (2019) observed the reverse, namely that technological innovation tends to lead to a rise in wealth inequality. Here, the classic broader narrative is one of a “fall from grace” as humanity eclipses from egalitarian towards socially more complex and unequal forms of organisation of the human political and productive life accompanied by increasing productivity and the technological development. By contrast, the incorporation of the capability perspective in the study of long-term archaeological transformations is able to yield a different, perhaps a more nuanced story that calls attention to capability-expanding possibilities of technological change and the ability to manage and distribute this capability expansion in communally beneficial ways.

Aligning with the observation made by Hofmann et al. (2019, p. 49), the decline observed in Participation, which in our framework can be understood as capability decline and deprivation, correlates with the gradual demise of the large Trypillia societies. Recently, Hofmann et al. (2024b, p. 10) noted that Gini values derived from differences in house sizes decrease between 4200 and 3800 BCE. Parallel to the participation curve in this study, inequality rises towards the end of the mega-site phenomenon. However, there are no significant correlations between Gini values and site sizes or the number of houses per settlement (Hofmann et al 2024b, p. 6). Hofmann and colleagues (2024b, p. 16) view the social structure at mega-sites as a pull factor for further increasing agglomeration at such settlements.

In our study, we observe capability expansions in the form of expanding “opportunity spaces” (analog to “frontier” in Kerig et al., 2022) deriving from technological advances, which correlates with expanding settlement population. However, the temporal direction of the transformation suggested by the data is notable – it is the reverse from the classic narrative of how population pressure drives innovation or the emergence of the state (Carneiro, 1970; Cohen, 1989; see also Johnson & Earle, 1987). While recent studies (Ashraf & Galor, 2011; Shennan, 2018) found that technological innovations and increasing productivity may have the effect of rising population, the effect on well-being remains an open question. We argue that innovation is expanding the capability space and attracting people to such a capability expansion hub, may it be large or small. As Weninger and Harper (2015; Harper, 2019) have shown on an over-regional scale, the rise of mega-sites in the Syniukha basin is likely related to migration, rather than a significant increase in fertility and survivability. Likewise, on the settlement scale, Ohlrau (2020b) found that the rise in population spans exceeds natural population growth rates hinting at residential mobility as modelled by Diachenko and Menotti (2012). Here, our results align with the findings of Fletcher (1995, pp. 126–162), who observed that means of spatial organisation, transportation, communication, or social techniques, such as megastructures in our case, are a fundamental prerequisite for settlement growth. Innovations typically do not emerge during phases when they are already a necessity (Cowgill, 1975). However, this is not to say that population size and density do not play a role in social cohesion, as Smith (2023b) has shown with the concept of energised crowding for past societies.

In other words, overall, in classic approaches (Johnson & Earle, 1987), the “causal direction” of human development has been cast as one driven by climate change and demographic growth as a push factor to which human technological innovation in political and technological has been seen as an adaptative response. Our argument opens the conceptual possibility that something like the reverse is the case: capability expansions for example in the form of increasing Participation “capability hubs” attract people and population growth.

What the available data in this case study unfortunately does not yield is the study of the health dimension at other analytic levels than the community. This is a dimension that most intuitively correlates with human well-being but is absent here due to a lack of individual-level health indicators such as burial data. We also lack data to inspect the connectedness or “networkedness” of these societies with external resources, and external trade and other objects, influences and communication – all relationships that can signal capability expansions and deprivations as a form of Participation in external trade and other networks. Also, in contrast to our previous work (Arponen et al., 2016; Müller et al., 2017a), in this case study, we could not observe the possible role of deprivations in “critical goods” and “critical capabilities” in the transformation of these societies. All these avenues represent possible directions of future research involving other data sets from different case studies.

10 Conclusion

In Section 1, we stated our aim to be one of providing the outlines of an empirically focused application of a philosophical idea in archaeology.

Towards this end, we engaged in the metatheoretical debate about the conceptual innovation that Sen’s Capability Approach brought into philosophy and economics and what its implications might be for archaeological interpretation. To sum up, central to Sen’s theory is what we termed the action-based perspective on the quality of human life with implications to the assessment of prehistoric change and transformations. As such, the Capability Approach could be seen to join forces and complement with a broader rethinking of the nature of power, inequality, political organisation and social complexity, and related topics in archaeology and related disciplines.

Towards empirical ends, first, we discuss the implications of the Capability Approach for the understanding of identity and social complexity. Second, we presented a scheme that seeks to provide the outlines of operationalising the Capability Approach for archaeology. For the purposes of eventual interdisciplinary interoperability and comparison of archaeological findings with findings from other historical eras, we grounded our model in the dimensions of the United Nations HDI. Moving into archaeology, we distinguished three analytical levels of the community, household, and individual in terms of which capability deprivations and expansions can be looked at. And lastly, we provided ideas as to which archaeological indicators might be associated with which dimensions and levels.

We believe that this approach to philosophical theory in and for archaeology can correct not only the overt metatheoretical focus in the philosophy of archaeology but also help bridge gaps between metatheoretically orientated archaeology and more empirical archaeology.