Synopses & Reviews
There are few questions more central to understanding the prehistory of our species than those regarding the institutionalization of social inequality. Social inequality is manifested in unequal access to goods, information, decision-making, and power. This structure is essential to higher orders of social organization and basic to the operation of more complex societies. An understanding of the transformation from relatively egalitarian societies to
Synopsis
Social Inequality and the Evolution of Human Social Organization.- On the Evolution of the Human Capacity for Inequality and/or Egalitarianism.- Degrees and Kinds of Inequality.- Gimme That Old Time Religion: Rethinking the Role of Religion in the Emergence of Social Inequality.- Who Benefits from Complexity? A View from Futuna.- Traces of Inequality at the Origins of Agriculture in the Ancient Near East.- Decentralized Complexity: The Case of Bronze Age Northern Europe.- Bitter Arrows and Generous Gifts: WhatWas a 'King' in the European Iron Age?.- A Dual-Processual Perspective on the Power and Inequality in the Contemporary United States: Framing Political Economy for the Present and the Past.
Synopsis
In a follow-up to their 1995 book Foundations of Social Inequality, the editors of this volume have compiled a new and comprehensive group of studies on the central questions of when and where hierarchy appears in human society, as well as how it operates.
About the Author
T. Douglas Price is the Director of the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Gary M. Feinman is Curator, Mesoamerican and Central American Anthropology, The Field Museum, Chicago, IL.
Table of Contents
Who Tilted the Playing Field.- Degrees and Kinds of Inequality.- Gimme That Old Time Religion.- Traces of Inequality at the Origin of Culture.- Decentralized Complexity.- Bitter Arrows and Generous Gifts.- Who Benefits from Complexity?- Dual-Processual Theory.