100 generations of wealth equality after the Neolithic transitions

Abstract

From Rousseau onward, scholars have identified the transition to sedentary agriculture as crucial to the history of wealth inequality. Here, using the GINI project's global database on disparities in residential size, we examine the effects of important innovations in plant cultivation, animal husbandry, and traction on wealth inequality. Over a series of regional case studies, we find no evidence of major changes in residential disparity before or after these technological innovations became widespread, and where the effects of systemic change are recognizable, they are ambiguous. The introduction of horticulture/farming is accompanied by a slight general increase in inequality, while subsequent innovations tend to have a leveling effect. Although increasing productivity and surplus are critical to generating wealth inequality, nothing in our data suggests that rising productivity alone led to greater wealth inequality.

Keywords: archaeology; comparative archaeology; economic archaeology; neolithic; social inequality.

Fig. 1.

Neolithic transition inequality. Gini coefficients at site-level against the spread of the Neolithic. Shown are the 2,000 y before and after domesticated plants became commonly produced (dt common). Isolines of dt common are calculated from dt dates of the sites (method: inverse distance, modified, see SI Appendix).

Fig. 2.

Neolithic transition inequality. Box plots of Gini coefficients at site-level by regions, before and after domesticated plants, animals, and traction became common.

Fig. 3.

Neolithic transition inequality. Result of the beta regression: location and dispersion parameters of posterior estimates (additional information on case studies in SI Appendix).