Archaeological settlement systems are usually analysed in terms of therelation between the rank of a settlement and its size (Zipf's law). We arguethat this approach is unreliable, and can be misleading, in application toarchaeological data where the recovery rate of settlements can be low and theirsize estimates are often approximate at best. An alternative framework for thesettlement data interpretation, better connected with the theoretical conceptsof the stochastic evolution of settlement systems, is applied to the evolvingsystem of settlements of the Late Neolithic-Bronze Age Trypillia culturalcomplex (5,400-2,800 BC) in modern Ukraine. The stochastic evolution modelprovides a consistent and accurate explanation of the frequency of occurrenceof Trypillian settlement areas in the range from 0.05 to 500 ha. Thusvalidated, the model leads to reliable estimates of the typical size of a newlyformed settlement as well as the growth rates of the total number ofsettlements and their areas. The parameters of the settlement system thusrevealed are consistent with palaeoeconomy reconstructions for the Trypilliaarea.

The evolving system of Trypillian settlements