Assessing grand narratives of economic inequality across time

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Feinman, Gary M.; Quequezana, Gabriela Cervantes; Green, Adam; Lawrence, Dan; Munson, Jessica; Ortman, Scott; Petrie, Cameron; Thompson, Amy; Nicholas, Linda M.
• 署名单位: Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago); Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; University of York - UK; University of York - UK; Durham University; University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Cambridge; University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-11969
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2400698121
• 发表日期: 2025-04-22
• 关键词: premodern societies; wealth inequality; GROWTH

摘要

Long-entrenched grand narratives have tied inequality in large human aggregations to generally linear trends, a direct outcome of domestication, then fostered by population growth and/or stepped scalar transitions in the hierarchical complexity of human institutions. This general pattern has been argued to short-circuit or reverse only in the context of cataclysmic disasters or societal breakdowns. Yet, for the most part, these universal deterministic frameworks have been constructed from historical or ethnographic snapshots in time and afford little systematic attention to human institutions or agency. Here, we leverage quantitative, temporally defined archaeological, and ethnographic data from a suite of global regions, most of which transitioned through the process of urbanism and complex hierarchy formation, to examine shifts in degrees of inequality over time. Although broad temporal patterns are evidenced, the regional trends in inequality are neither linear, uniform, nor triggered immediately or mechanically by Malthusian dynamics or scalar increases.