Withe respect to some earlier queries and points by
Steve (I've lost the exact posting in the shuffle...).
I was unable to open the article he referred us to. To
my knowledge however, Trypilia never extended into the
south of Russia. I don't know what the author meant by
its "most recent" phase. But if Steve's dates are
correct this would be the Late Trypilia (end of the
4th millennium BC). Cremation was the preponderant
burial rite during the Middle or Classic Trypilian
phase(ca. 4500-3500 BC) and probably (though little
has survived) during the Early Trypilian phase (beg.
ca. 5200 BC) as well. I'm not familiar with the LBK
burial rites in Central and Western Europe, but when
this culture reached the territory of present day
Ukraine, cremation was one of the options. Which
brings us even further back into the 6th millennium BC.*****
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