Greater post-Neolithic wealth disparities in Eurasia than in North America and Mesoamerica.

ABSTRACT: How wealth is distributed among households provides insight into the fundamental characters of societies and the opportunities they afford for social mobility. However, economic inequality has been hard to study in ancient societies for which we do not have written records, which adds to the challenge of placing current wealth disparities into a long-term perspective. Although various archaeological proxies for wealth, such as burial goods or exotic or expensive-to-manufacture goods in household assemblages, have been proposed, the first is not clearly connected with households, and the second is confounded by abandonment mode and other factors. As a result, numerous questions remain concerning the growth of wealth disparities, including their connection to the development of domesticated

SUBMITTER: Kohler TA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5714260 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature