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The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire by Kent Flannery
Our early ancestors lived in small groups and worked actively to preserve social equality. As they created larger societies, however, inequality rose, and by 2500 BCE truly egalitarian societies were on the wane. In The Creation of Inequality, Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus demonstrate that this development was not simply the result of population increase, food surplus, or the accumulation of valuables. Instead, inequality resulted from conscious manipulation of the unique social logic that lies at the core of every human group.A few societies allowed talented and ambitious individuals to rise in prestige while still preventing them from becoming a hereditary elite. But many others made high rank hereditary, by manipulating debts, genealogies, and sacred lore. At certain moments in history, intense competition among leaders of high rank gave rise to despotic kingdoms and empires in the Near East, Egypt, Africa, Mexico, Peru, and the Pacific.Drawing on their vast knowledge of both living and prehistoric social groups, Flannery and Marcus describe the changes in logic that create larger and more hierarchical societies, and they argue persuasively that many kinds of inequality can be overcome by reversing these changes, rather than by violence.
Hardcover
First published May 15, 2012
About the author
Kent V. Flannery
24 books9 followersKent Vaughn Flannery is a North American archaeologist who has conducted and published extensive research on the pre-Columbian cultures and civilizations of Mesoamerica, and in particular those of central and southern Mexico.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
October 19, 2021
This is a fascinating book, from which I learned a lot, but which at times also annoyed me immensely by the overload of detail and by the questionable methodology. The subject Flannery and Marcus focus on, the origin of inequality in human history, is of course particularly interesting. Both authors are renowned archaeologists and the archaeological material is extensively covered, especially on the earliest agricultural societies in the Middle East, in Central and South America. China is not one of them and that is a striking gap. But Flannery and Marcus also use ethnographic findings at least as much: in each chapter they go into great detail about the social relationships within tribes/groups of hunter-gatherers, as described by anthropologists in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, shortly after their discovery. That in itself is very interesting (although again a bit too detailed for my taste), but I mainly see a methodological problem. For starters, those earliest anthropological descriptions are very unscientific, and Flannery and Marcus adopt these accounts without being critical. But above all, it seems highly questionable to me to just use that ethnographic information to interpret the archaeological material about civilizations from thousands of years earlier. And that's what Flannery and Marcus systematically do. I'm not going to dispute that their approach sometimes yields interesting perspectives, but their methodology seems to me to be very dubious to present a sound historical-scientific story. Perhaps I am doing injustice to this book, as the content it provides is immensely rich and varied. But I do note that it has had little or no academic follow-up. More on this in my History-account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
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October 22, 2021In this book, archaeologists Flannery and Marcus embark on a very ambitious project, namely pinpointing the origins of inequalities in human societies. The classic thesis, going back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is that it started when people became sedentary, demarcating their plot of land, in other words from the agricultural period, about 10,000 years ago. This book suggestes that it was obviously much more complex, and the authors use an abundance of archaeological and especially ethnographic material to substantiate that.
There are some serious methodological issues involved, because the authors take the ethnographic material from relatively recent hunter-gatherers as a starting point, subsequentely using it to interprete the archaeological material from thousands of years ago. I am not going to dispute that Flannery and Marcus cover a very wide field: they spend hundreds of pages depicting the situation of tribes and clans, as described by Western observers, ranging from the 16th to the 20th century, and spanning almost all parts of the world, always focusing on hierarchical processes. And that's pretty interesting in itself.
But then they make the link to societies from thousands of years ago. They base this approach on the argument that those more recent hunter-gatherers and early farmers are perfectly comparable to prehistoric societies during and after the Ice Age: “Even the most cautious archaeologists concede that the Magdalenians must be considered fully equivalent to the hunting-and-gathering groups of the recent past. And that opens the door to a huge archive of detailed information on living foragers, collected by anthropologists over the last century. Our search for the origins of inequality can, therefore, take 15,000 B.C. as its starting point.” The first words of this statement (“even the most cautious archaeologists”) are typical of the approach of Flannery and Marcus: they regularly reinterpret the existing archaeological material in a very idiosyncratic and crude way. An example: in the finds that were made in the Near East from about 10 to 8,000 years ago, they systematically speak of the presence of men's huts that are converted into ritual houses, eventually becoming temples. That interpretation seems very debatable to me, because you csan't find it in the specialized archaeological studies on those finds. But those men's huts and ritual houses do appear to be found among many 'modern' hunter-gatherers who made the transition to sedentism. In other words: Flannery and Marcus seem to be cherry picking in function of their own interpretation, reasoning back from more recent periods and thus systematically putting the cart before the horse. And there are many examples that go in the same vain.
All this does not alter the fact that Flannery and Marcus, in all their zeal, explore a number of interesting avenues, and propose hypotheses and concepts that can be inspiring for future research. For example, they are launching the term 'achievement-based societies', more or less as an alternative to the descriptions such as 'tribes' or 'clans' that were very popular among anthropologists until recently. In the authors' typology, these are groups living together in which some people (usually, or almost always, men, Big Men) show clear leadership and are also recognized as such, on the basis of certain achievements or qualities (in gathering food or luxury items, in the battle with neighboring groups, or in the holding of large feasts or the giving of exceptional gifts). It seems logical that those leadership qualities provoke imbalances, which subsequently could lead to striking inequalities. Interestingly, Flannery and Marcus were able to deduce from the ethnographic material that in the more recent hunter-gatherer groups there were all kinds of compensating mechanisms to prevent those disparities from becoming permanent. According to them, this was undoubtedly also the case in prehistoric societies. And that would explain why it took so long for inequality in human societies to become truly institutionalized.
For Flannery and Marcus making the leadership hereditary, the transition from an 'achievement-based society' to a 'hereditary rank society', was the crucial step, and that seems plausible. The only problem is that this seems difficult to deduce from the archaeological material. The authors therefore invoke the ethnographic material to point out the crucial role of religions, with leaders invoking a privileged relationship with the ancestors or deities, and sometimes declaring themselves divine. Again an interesting hypothesis, but very difficult to substantiate from the archaeological record. Moreover, with this hypothesis Flannery and Marcus limit the fundamental step towards inequality in societies to the political level, which seems to me to be a little too narrow a basis, because it excludes forms of inequality such as slavery and gender discrimination. In short, this book faces many issues, yet it does provide inspiration and challenge for other researchers to continue working on a healthier, empirical basis.
There are some serious methodological issues involved, because the authors take the ethnographic material from relatively recent hunter-gatherers as a starting point, subsequentely using it to interprete the archaeological material from thousands of years ago. I am not going to dispute that Flannery and Marcus cover a very wide field: they spend hundreds of pages depicting the situation of tribes and clans, as described by Western observers, ranging from the 16th to the 20th century, and spanning almost all parts of the world, always focusing on hierarchical processes. And that's pretty interesting in itself.
But then they make the link to societies from thousands of years ago. They base this approach on the argument that those more recent hunter-gatherers and early farmers are perfectly comparable to prehistoric societies during and after the Ice Age: “Even the most cautious archaeologists concede that the Magdalenians must be considered fully equivalent to the hunting-and-gathering groups of the recent past. And that opens the door to a huge archive of detailed information on living foragers, collected by anthropologists over the last century. Our search for the origins of inequality can, therefore, take 15,000 B.C. as its starting point.” The first words of this statement (“even the most cautious archaeologists”) are typical of the approach of Flannery and Marcus: they regularly reinterpret the existing archaeological material in a very idiosyncratic and crude way. An example: in the finds that were made in the Near East from about 10 to 8,000 years ago, they systematically speak of the presence of men's huts that are converted into ritual houses, eventually becoming temples. That interpretation seems very debatable to me, because you csan't find it in the specialized archaeological studies on those finds. But those men's huts and ritual houses do appear to be found among many 'modern' hunter-gatherers who made the transition to sedentism. In other words: Flannery and Marcus seem to be cherry picking in function of their own interpretation, reasoning back from more recent periods and thus systematically putting the cart before the horse. And there are many examples that go in the same vain.
All this does not alter the fact that Flannery and Marcus, in all their zeal, explore a number of interesting avenues, and propose hypotheses and concepts that can be inspiring for future research. For example, they are launching the term 'achievement-based societies', more or less as an alternative to the descriptions such as 'tribes' or 'clans' that were very popular among anthropologists until recently. In the authors' typology, these are groups living together in which some people (usually, or almost always, men, Big Men) show clear leadership and are also recognized as such, on the basis of certain achievements or qualities (in gathering food or luxury items, in the battle with neighboring groups, or in the holding of large feasts or the giving of exceptional gifts). It seems logical that those leadership qualities provoke imbalances, which subsequently could lead to striking inequalities. Interestingly, Flannery and Marcus were able to deduce from the ethnographic material that in the more recent hunter-gatherer groups there were all kinds of compensating mechanisms to prevent those disparities from becoming permanent. According to them, this was undoubtedly also the case in prehistoric societies. And that would explain why it took so long for inequality in human societies to become truly institutionalized.
For Flannery and Marcus making the leadership hereditary, the transition from an 'achievement-based society' to a 'hereditary rank society', was the crucial step, and that seems plausible. The only problem is that this seems difficult to deduce from the archaeological material. The authors therefore invoke the ethnographic material to point out the crucial role of religions, with leaders invoking a privileged relationship with the ancestors or deities, and sometimes declaring themselves divine. Again an interesting hypothesis, but very difficult to substantiate from the archaeological record. Moreover, with this hypothesis Flannery and Marcus limit the fundamental step towards inequality in societies to the political level, which seems to me to be a little too narrow a basis, because it excludes forms of inequality such as slavery and gender discrimination. In short, this book faces many issues, yet it does provide inspiration and challenge for other researchers to continue working on a healthier, empirical basis.
December 22, 2012
Good but disappointing. It's a valuable work, containing copious evidence to support the thesis that significant social inequality arose relatively recently in human history (before agriculture, but agriculture did lead to an deepening of scope for inequality). Much of the work in distinguishing between different types of hunter-gatherer life is based on Raymond Kelly's excellent anthropology, and the authors provide a clear and accessible account of transitions between different types of society - all the ways to kingdoms and empires.
However, the volume of evidence is tiring. Skimming becomes essential to survive the whole book. Following the metaphor that theory is like perfume (too much puts people off, but just enough lures people to you), the authors aim for "just a dab behind the ear." The problem is, they don't take into account the vast size of their work's body, swollen by litanies of archaeological detail. A diet and a little more perfume would have done wonders here.
However, the volume of evidence is tiring. Skimming becomes essential to survive the whole book. Following the metaphor that theory is like perfume (too much puts people off, but just enough lures people to you), the authors aim for "just a dab behind the ear." The problem is, they don't take into account the vast size of their work's body, swollen by litanies of archaeological detail. A diet and a little more perfume would have done wonders here.
December 11, 2015
What we know of modern hunter-gatherer societies and what we deduce from the archaeological evidence of prehistoric hunter-gatherers indicates that [the vast majority of] hunter-gatherer groups are/were "egalitarian." By egalitarian we mean there are social norms and behaviors that discourage alpha male behavior, too much bragging and coercive leadership. Also, there tends to be sharing, especially of meat, and some other economic cooperation. This does not mean every member has exactly as much as every other member, but the level of political and economic differences is much less than in other societies. So, there's a reasonable question, "How did we get to the level of inequality we have today?"
The title of the book might leave the impression that the subject is the single, first transition from hunter-gatherer egalitarianism to hunter-gatherer or early agrarian societies in which egalitarianism has been decreased. In fact, the book guides the reader through a progression of stages in which privilege grows, alters social structures and solidifies heredity and strata (although not necessarily a fully developed economic class structure.) In the telling of the process, we're given descriptions from archaeology and anthropology of various societies with their cultural elements indicative of what aspects of inequality were present. Some readers may be more interested in the general evolution rather than the specific case examples, but the particulars can be useful for readers who may want clues for related questions that this book does not directly discuss.
*
While in the preface, the author's use of Rousseau's view of hunter-gatherers and the question of equality made sense. It was an early effort to consider the issue, written by someone who influenced the American and French revolutions. But as later references to Rousseau appeared, I started to wonder whether the book was overly influenced by an essay based on sparse data compared to what we have today.
*
One point which seems worth deeper analysis was the presence of "slaves" in some societies beginning fairly early in the development of inequality. In these early cases, slaves were not the primary form of labor, and were often captives from a battle between groups. Also, at a certain point some "slaves" were people working off debts (would it have been more accurate to call these "indentured servants?") In any case, these seem to be cases in which people are treated something like property in societies in which property has not been formalized the way we are familiar with. A greater understanding of this early slavery might clarify the development of "property" and related matters.
Also, the seizure of members of other clans / societies, and their use as slaves reflects a double standard in social norms towards in-group and out-group individuals. A greater understanding of this would be useful in creating more inclusive society.
In post-equality / pre-class societies, there may be a question about the main motives of the head-men who have some privileges but don't have a formal relationship of economic master of other residents. There can be "property rights" which allows the head-man to extract fees from other members for use of the more advantageous resources. (I wondered whether there was a distinction between their view of "property" and ours. For instance, was there no "trespassing" in the sense of walking through an area of land or climbing up a fruit tree, but a violation if one took fruit off the tree?)
*
A common thread in the first steps away from egalitarianism is the attribution of supernatural connections held by particular individuals. One point which is not clarified by the book (and perhaps can't be clarified without the use of a time machine) is to what extent this was conscious manipulation of others by a schemer, and how much this developed from honest belief. A case can be made that supernatural beliefs are a natural consequence of intelligent beings associating beneficial outcomes with good choices. Then, in hopes of having control in all things, invoking supernatural beings to help us do what we can't do ourselves, and imagining good choices dealing with the supernatural result in beneficial results. On the other hand, Christopher Boehm's Moral Origins argues that the human conscience evolved in connection with hunter-gatherers acting against overly selfish individuals, and the resulting need of individuals to control selfish activity. But not all humans have a functioning conscience and use deception to circumvent egalitarian norms. It's also possible that someone with an egotistical personality might be self-deluded to believe greater forces have a special relationship with him. I'm not sure which areas in the study of equality need an answer to this question, but it may be important for some matters. (The book does refer to some cases in which supernatural claims were used to achieve higher status as "orchestrated.")
Determining the specific means used to gain special status in prehistoric cases is problematic. However, in observed examples, individuals or lineages have been seen to aspire to a higher status and manipulate others' beliefs regarding their ancestry to portray them as descended from greater supernatural beings / more significant beings in creation myths. At least in one observed example, a debate was employed by a society to determine disputes and the question of ancestry was debated. Both the desire for special status and debating ability (manipulative talents) would be consistent with a psychopathic personality (or perhaps with a self-absorbed person who was especially good an deceiving himself into believing whatever was convenient.)
*
In the concluding chapter of the book, the author attributes important factors in the social dynamics of equality and inequality as being spiritual beliefs and morality. And it is stated that these aren't coded in our genes. The author makes a special reference to generosity as part of morality - and notes that this must be reinforced by social pressure. Generosity and reciprocity are certainly important in the cooperation in hunter-gatherer societies, and social pressure for helping others and egalitarianism are related to this. Based on other reading, it seems social emotions that support cooperation and a sense of fairness ARE in our genes. They aren't the only motives encoded in our genes, so we're not all saints. But cooperation and a sense of fairness are not solely imposed by society, and that distinction can lead to significant differences in conclusions.
The author also says that a fundamental tenet of the moral beliefs of human societies is that "our" society is morally superior to "their" society. I'd like to see a study of this, and to what extent that can be moderated in building a single human society. In hunter-gatherer bands, people learn through experience the strengths and weaknesses of members of their own community. There isn't the same level of experience-based knowledge of how people from other communities would treat you, so it may be natural to have doubts about what to expect from "outsiders." But on the other hand, we do seem to be able to feel part of and be loyal to cities, states/provinces and nations. A clearer understanding of ability to control "us vs. them" thinking would be an important tool.
(There's also a question of what it would mean to reverse the incremental process of inequality. Presumably, he doesn't mean a step-by-step rollback of history: from democracy to constitutional monarchy, then to pure monarchy, then chiefdoms... and then hunter-gatherer egalitarianism. Perhaps, a simplified version of [part of ?] what he has in mind is to over the course of time incrementally increase the top income tax brackets and use the money to increase the standard of living of lower-income people. That could greatly reduce wealth inequality. But as long as those who [whose families] were wealthy before these changes and/or those who have higher incomes after these changes own the powerful economic enterprises, they will have forms of social leverage and production decision-control which doesn't exist under hunter-gatherer egalitarianism. As a matter of fact, if one has a goal of egalitarianism with the basic conceptual framework of hunter-gatherers, property would be limited to the kinds of things one would have in the home - food, clothing, shelter, decorations, personal tools, and the like. Does the author envision that as a final incremental step?)
*
The author suggests that returning to equality would not require revolutionary action. His logic is that ineguality grew incrementally over time, so we should be able to incrementally reverse the process. I didn't find that convincing, and it would be less difficult to believe if he had stated his hypothesis only applied in nations with governments elected by the general public. Today, our elites are very entrenched with vast resources, and at least strategic sections of the elite are very conscious about maintaining institutions and channels to maintain or increase their privileges. The US has a history of intervening against foreign nations - including democracies - with policies inconvenient to US elites. US elites have much influence on government between elections. And various methods are being attempted today to decrease access to voting in the US. So, even in nations which (currently) have elected governments can't be depended on to follow incremental increases in equality. One last thought: Assume that nations with elected governments can reverse the process of inequality. Assume an elected government proceeds down that path. The forces of the privileged may focus their resources to overthrow that government, which may mean there will no longer be an elected government to act against inequality. Elected governments have been overthrown in the past, and should not be assumed to be immune to such threats.
*
This book's study of privileged individuals and layers in societies which are not formalized economic class societies could be useful to Marxists and others trying to understand societies such as the USSR which had an elite but didn't fit into traditional class structures.
- Feb. 9 -
All the talk about the Super Bowl made me think about what we might learn from sports fandom about in-group / out-group viewpoints, loyalties and prejudice. A sports fan need not live in the same city as their favored team, and need not share gender, race, religion, place of birth or other such factors with the players. A sports fan need never have as much as seen a player from his favored team walking down the opposite side of the street that the fan walked down. In other words, there need not be any practical connection between the fan and the team. There also need not be any significant characteristic of the non-favored teams to make the fan wish for those other teams to lose. Yes, generally, the favored team's stadium is less distant from the fan's home than the other teams' stadiums. However, the fan need never have set foot in the favored team's city or stadium. And as NYC football fans know, the stadium need not be in the city for which the team is named. NYC baseball fans know that there are two different teams / stadiums within the city, and distance to the stadium often doesn't determine which team a fan prefers... Often, it's a matter of which team your parents cheered for, or one's group of friends. Do humans NEED a sub-group of humans to be "us" and others to be "them?" Or, could human learn to teach our children to cheer for all humans?
The title of the book might leave the impression that the subject is the single, first transition from hunter-gatherer egalitarianism to hunter-gatherer or early agrarian societies in which egalitarianism has been decreased. In fact, the book guides the reader through a progression of stages in which privilege grows, alters social structures and solidifies heredity and strata (although not necessarily a fully developed economic class structure.) In the telling of the process, we're given descriptions from archaeology and anthropology of various societies with their cultural elements indicative of what aspects of inequality were present. Some readers may be more interested in the general evolution rather than the specific case examples, but the particulars can be useful for readers who may want clues for related questions that this book does not directly discuss.
*
While in the preface, the author's use of Rousseau's view of hunter-gatherers and the question of equality made sense. It was an early effort to consider the issue, written by someone who influenced the American and French revolutions. But as later references to Rousseau appeared, I started to wonder whether the book was overly influenced by an essay based on sparse data compared to what we have today.
*
One point which seems worth deeper analysis was the presence of "slaves" in some societies beginning fairly early in the development of inequality. In these early cases, slaves were not the primary form of labor, and were often captives from a battle between groups. Also, at a certain point some "slaves" were people working off debts (would it have been more accurate to call these "indentured servants?") In any case, these seem to be cases in which people are treated something like property in societies in which property has not been formalized the way we are familiar with. A greater understanding of this early slavery might clarify the development of "property" and related matters.
Also, the seizure of members of other clans / societies, and their use as slaves reflects a double standard in social norms towards in-group and out-group individuals. A greater understanding of this would be useful in creating more inclusive society.
In post-equality / pre-class societies, there may be a question about the main motives of the head-men who have some privileges but don't have a formal relationship of economic master of other residents. There can be "property rights" which allows the head-man to extract fees from other members for use of the more advantageous resources. (I wondered whether there was a distinction between their view of "property" and ours. For instance, was there no "trespassing" in the sense of walking through an area of land or climbing up a fruit tree, but a violation if one took fruit off the tree?)
*
A common thread in the first steps away from egalitarianism is the attribution of supernatural connections held by particular individuals. One point which is not clarified by the book (and perhaps can't be clarified without the use of a time machine) is to what extent this was conscious manipulation of others by a schemer, and how much this developed from honest belief. A case can be made that supernatural beliefs are a natural consequence of intelligent beings associating beneficial outcomes with good choices. Then, in hopes of having control in all things, invoking supernatural beings to help us do what we can't do ourselves, and imagining good choices dealing with the supernatural result in beneficial results. On the other hand, Christopher Boehm's Moral Origins argues that the human conscience evolved in connection with hunter-gatherers acting against overly selfish individuals, and the resulting need of individuals to control selfish activity. But not all humans have a functioning conscience and use deception to circumvent egalitarian norms. It's also possible that someone with an egotistical personality might be self-deluded to believe greater forces have a special relationship with him. I'm not sure which areas in the study of equality need an answer to this question, but it may be important for some matters. (The book does refer to some cases in which supernatural claims were used to achieve higher status as "orchestrated.")
Determining the specific means used to gain special status in prehistoric cases is problematic. However, in observed examples, individuals or lineages have been seen to aspire to a higher status and manipulate others' beliefs regarding their ancestry to portray them as descended from greater supernatural beings / more significant beings in creation myths. At least in one observed example, a debate was employed by a society to determine disputes and the question of ancestry was debated. Both the desire for special status and debating ability (manipulative talents) would be consistent with a psychopathic personality (or perhaps with a self-absorbed person who was especially good an deceiving himself into believing whatever was convenient.)
*
In the concluding chapter of the book, the author attributes important factors in the social dynamics of equality and inequality as being spiritual beliefs and morality. And it is stated that these aren't coded in our genes. The author makes a special reference to generosity as part of morality - and notes that this must be reinforced by social pressure. Generosity and reciprocity are certainly important in the cooperation in hunter-gatherer societies, and social pressure for helping others and egalitarianism are related to this. Based on other reading, it seems social emotions that support cooperation and a sense of fairness ARE in our genes. They aren't the only motives encoded in our genes, so we're not all saints. But cooperation and a sense of fairness are not solely imposed by society, and that distinction can lead to significant differences in conclusions.
The author also says that a fundamental tenet of the moral beliefs of human societies is that "our" society is morally superior to "their" society. I'd like to see a study of this, and to what extent that can be moderated in building a single human society. In hunter-gatherer bands, people learn through experience the strengths and weaknesses of members of their own community. There isn't the same level of experience-based knowledge of how people from other communities would treat you, so it may be natural to have doubts about what to expect from "outsiders." But on the other hand, we do seem to be able to feel part of and be loyal to cities, states/provinces and nations. A clearer understanding of ability to control "us vs. them" thinking would be an important tool.
(There's also a question of what it would mean to reverse the incremental process of inequality. Presumably, he doesn't mean a step-by-step rollback of history: from democracy to constitutional monarchy, then to pure monarchy, then chiefdoms... and then hunter-gatherer egalitarianism. Perhaps, a simplified version of [part of ?] what he has in mind is to over the course of time incrementally increase the top income tax brackets and use the money to increase the standard of living of lower-income people. That could greatly reduce wealth inequality. But as long as those who [whose families] were wealthy before these changes and/or those who have higher incomes after these changes own the powerful economic enterprises, they will have forms of social leverage and production decision-control which doesn't exist under hunter-gatherer egalitarianism. As a matter of fact, if one has a goal of egalitarianism with the basic conceptual framework of hunter-gatherers, property would be limited to the kinds of things one would have in the home - food, clothing, shelter, decorations, personal tools, and the like. Does the author envision that as a final incremental step?)
*
The author suggests that returning to equality would not require revolutionary action. His logic is that ineguality grew incrementally over time, so we should be able to incrementally reverse the process. I didn't find that convincing, and it would be less difficult to believe if he had stated his hypothesis only applied in nations with governments elected by the general public. Today, our elites are very entrenched with vast resources, and at least strategic sections of the elite are very conscious about maintaining institutions and channels to maintain or increase their privileges. The US has a history of intervening against foreign nations - including democracies - with policies inconvenient to US elites. US elites have much influence on government between elections. And various methods are being attempted today to decrease access to voting in the US. So, even in nations which (currently) have elected governments can't be depended on to follow incremental increases in equality. One last thought: Assume that nations with elected governments can reverse the process of inequality. Assume an elected government proceeds down that path. The forces of the privileged may focus their resources to overthrow that government, which may mean there will no longer be an elected government to act against inequality. Elected governments have been overthrown in the past, and should not be assumed to be immune to such threats.
*
This book's study of privileged individuals and layers in societies which are not formalized economic class societies could be useful to Marxists and others trying to understand societies such as the USSR which had an elite but didn't fit into traditional class structures.
- Feb. 9 -
All the talk about the Super Bowl made me think about what we might learn from sports fandom about in-group / out-group viewpoints, loyalties and prejudice. A sports fan need not live in the same city as their favored team, and need not share gender, race, religion, place of birth or other such factors with the players. A sports fan need never have as much as seen a player from his favored team walking down the opposite side of the street that the fan walked down. In other words, there need not be any practical connection between the fan and the team. There also need not be any significant characteristic of the non-favored teams to make the fan wish for those other teams to lose. Yes, generally, the favored team's stadium is less distant from the fan's home than the other teams' stadiums. However, the fan need never have set foot in the favored team's city or stadium. And as NYC football fans know, the stadium need not be in the city for which the team is named. NYC baseball fans know that there are two different teams / stadiums within the city, and distance to the stadium often doesn't determine which team a fan prefers... Often, it's a matter of which team your parents cheered for, or one's group of friends. Do humans NEED a sub-group of humans to be "us" and others to be "them?" Or, could human learn to teach our children to cheer for all humans?
October 12, 2021
So much information. Really in depth analysis of how social inequality arose and tries to reflect multiple perspectives. I have been really engrossed in this book. I am giving it 4, not 5, stars for two reasons. One is that there's WAY too much information in this book for it to be interesting for most readers (I'm super nerdy and I enjoyed it, but it does feel a bit more like a text book or encyclopedia than a book most people would pick up and read from the library). The second is that I think this book could have been more interesting if it spent less time diving into so many different cultures and so many incredible details and spent a little bit of time talking about inequality and egalitarianism in animals, particularly those closest related to us. This book really drew a hard distinction between "man" and "animal" and although the authors did some justice to, for example, the other human species of neanderthals having their own art and culture, there was a constant "human is best, human's complex society is the pinnacle of evolution" the book also didn't really discuss how societies can evolve into complex and hierarchical structures which then in turn also collapse or evolve into something else - as there are many cases where inequality itself seems to be part of the trigger for the social fabric crumbling, as people want something better that serves them better - and there have been times in ancient and recent history where complex hierarchy is replaced by further evolution in the other direction. I thought that some discussion from that perspective could have added something. There's also the fact that the book seems to go out of its way to present patriarchal societies as the norm, with very few references to societies that have existed outside of that structure over time. Just a side-note.
April 1, 2025
I am somewhat ambivalent about The Creation of Inequality. How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery and Empire.
I am not entirely sure the contents reflected what the label on the tin said, even allowing for its advertising hyperbole. And the folksy Americentric approach irritated me at times: “Converted to a more militaristic society by the Tongan invasion, the Samoans became legendary warriors. No one who follows American professional football will be surprised by this fact. Picture a war canoe paddled by Manu Tuiasosopo (6’3” and 255 pounds), Tiaina “Junior” Seau (6’3” and 250 pounds), Edwin Mulitalo (6’3” and 340 pounds),” etc etc. I am not sure that this contributes to the scholarly credentials of the book. My concern with the scholarship was extended when the authors offered a foolishly simplistic comparison between England’s Catholic Queen Mary I following Protestant King Edward VI, with the Egyptian religious volte face over Amun and Aten when Akhenaten died.
Then again, there was a vast amount of archaeological and anthropological information in the book and, by and large, the information did lead to a reasonably coherent picture.
Flannery and Marcus tout their methodology which combines archaeology (the discipline with which they are both connected) which does not allow direct observation of human behaviour, with anthropology which allows that direct observation but is hugely displaced from pre-historic times. It remains, I think, an open question as to whether the combination really allows us to see into pre-historic societies.
In a sense, the story begins with the acknowledgement that “Humans share 98% of their DNA with chimpanzees, and chimpanzees are anything but egalitarian. They have alpha males who physically abuse their rivals and beta males who bully everyone but the alphas.” Which rather suggests that we are genetically pre-destined to be hierarchical in social structure. However, it is proposed that “by giving humans the capacity for language and culture, natural selection enabled them” to take a more nuanced course. The higher reasoning powers allowed, or even encouraged something we might see as more altruistic.
It seems that there is general agreement that the broad change from equality to inequality took place at the end of the neolithic hunter-gatherer phase. That concept, itself is, however, an over-simplification, in that the change from hunter-gatherer to sedentary farmer was gradual. The authors mention that, as far back as 75,000 to 55,000 years ago, some bulbs were being cultivated and left, for harvest on the party’s return; grasses were being saved and kept. Fences were being constructed for management of wildlife. And fish were probably being smoked, so that subsistence was not entirely reliant on immediate and fortuitous hunting and gathering. (In fact, good fishing presumably often obviated the need for moving far from a base settlement.)
“The headmen of foraging groups were not bullies. They were generous, modest, and diplomatic, because their constituents were too skilled at alliance-building to put up with bullies”. Yet there is evidently some dispute as to whether such altruism would have worked. The stability of chimpanzee groups derives from their hierarchy. On the other hand, it has apparently been suggested that in early human societies, deities occupied the role of the alpha-chimp.
Elements of agricultural practices were introduced in phases, obviously without perceiving them as moves into a different lifestyle paradigm.
Considerable attention is dedicated in the book to Inuit societies and it seems that they quite commonly actively discourage any trend towards inequality. An assumption is made that, on the basis of similarities between ancient, and recent, observed, Inuit societies, it can be concluded that features identified in recent societies will also have been present in original hunter gatherer communities. On this basis, it is averred that “So crucial was food sharing that the Eskimo used ridicule to prevent hoarding and greed…A skilled hunter and good provider might be universally respected, but even he was expected to be generous and unassuming.” If the skilled hunter boasted of his prowess, he was ridiculed. Thus, the group’s survival was reliant on selfless sharing so there was deliberate repression of individually-focused behaviour. “Generosity is a wide-spread principle among hunters and gatherers, yet constant social pressure must be applied to ensure that individuals continue to be generous.”
This is taken to mean that early transitional societies are likely to have tended towards stable non-hierarchical structures of basic equity. And Inuit behaviours are used to propose that humour could have been a vital tool in the strategy to suppress any individuals who were seeking to move into leadership positions on the basis of their higher skills.
Nevertheless, at some point, inequality appeared – such that it is now ubiquitous.
The authors suggest that one form of transition into hierarchies might have resulted from developments out of gift-giving processes. Apparently, in many circumstances, societies had strict rules preventing the giving of gifts which would make repayment difficult. Honour would require repayment so the original gift had to make repayment a practicable possibility. However, in time, these rules dissolved and some recipients accumulated debt which made them beholden to the original donor. These donors acquired the right to wear differentiating clothing and to have specific privileges such as additional wives. “Because of the desire to be thought of as superior, some hunter-gatherers manipulated cosmologies, reciprocal exchange, social obligations, wealth transfer and the subservience of junior lineages to create societies based on hereditary rank.”
“Many economic historians see in the temple estates the germ of a capitalist society. Early Dynastic temples were profit-making, surplus-accumulating, money-lending, interest-charging corporations, and foreclosure on loans may have driven thousands of needy farmers into servitude.”
This reminds us that leadership could arise in several different dimensions. First, there is the social, whereby the leader effects prominence in the society and is possibly able to order people to take on certain tasks; secondly, in times when conflict, or imperial ambition for additional territory arose, leadership would take what we would see as a military form. Finally, ritual leadership would also become important. We need to remember that there is, contrary to the simple model, some evidence of leadership in hunter-gatherer communities. The extraordinary site of Gobekli Tepe has no evidence of village farming and yet the remarkable ritual structures must have had large work-forces coordinated by some form of leadership. This site also defies the paradigm that foragers had random places and times for ritual practice, compared with the scheduled rituals in specific places for agriculturalists.
Flannery and Marcus argue that “achievement-based leadership” probably arose about 10,000 years ago in the Near East. This, the end of the Ice Age, was also the time of transition to early sedentary farming practices: “Glaciers melted, sea levels rose, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the world’s atmosphere increased from 180 to 280 ppm, a 50 percent increase in just a few thousand years. Since plants grow better at this higher carbon dioxide level, it was a good time to experiment with agriculture.” There was a spread of mutant domestic races of wheat and barley; long-term camps became permanent mutigenerational villages; and fences were erected to corral herd animals, goats, sheep, pigs, and smaller cattle.
The book draws a distinction between hierarchies where leadership is entirely a consequence of an individual’s merit, and those where leadership is inherited. By and large, the former seem to precede the latter, and the book contends that there was commonly some resistance to the subsequent adoption of hereditary leadership. There was, they say, “a long-standing desire” for equality. “The balance they struck between personal ambition and the public good allowed their way of life to endure for centuries.” It is argued that there would need to be an alteration to “the social logic to allow for hereditary privilege”. “Hereditary inequality does not occur without active manipulation of social logic”. (And yet I can not help thinking there would also be an evolutionary pressure towards hereditary privilege. Given that part of the evolutionary model involves transmission of benefit through to later generations, would not those benefits have included social exclusivity providing for guaranteed food supplies and security from personal attack, as well as freer access to a parenting partner?)
Archaeology provides convincing evidence of early inherited rank. Grave goods including such ritualistic items as statuettes, weapons and jewellery are seen as reflecting the high rank of the incumbent. There is nothing in such an adult burial, however, to indicate the source of the rank: notable achievement and leadership, or inheritance. Burials from 7,500 years ago in Mesopotamia show the remains of young children with similar grave goods. The interpretation has been that these are also indicative of rank and that the child would have been too young to have demonstrated hierarchical skills, so their privilege must have been inherited.
Once hereditary inequality took hold, it provided its own justification for increased disparities in wealth and authority. There was an increased separation between settlements and increased conflict, and the conflict led to further potential for inequity. “the ‘us versus them’ mentality of clans justified raiding. The principal of social substitutability meant anyone from another group was fair game. Some raiding parties returned with trophy heads. Others returned with captive women and children, turning them into slaves.” The book refers to a group in Assam where “A man who had be-headed no one was considered such a wimp that he had trouble getting a wife.”
It was an interesting point that the most extreme inequality was where there was a direct relationship between the earthly leader and deities, such as in Egypt. In early Sumer, “Hundreds of rules of social behaviour had allegedly been established by the gods; human priests, judges, and bailiffs were there to make sure that they were followed. The state decided what men were allowed to do, what women were allowed to do, who could marry, who could divorce, who could strike whom, and so on”. And “The rest of human society obeyed the ruler. Only a ruler was powerful enough to have a direct relationship with his city’s patron deity. A commoner interacted only with his tutelary God, a lesser deity who had taken an interest in him.” The authors present, in a slight digression, the interesting hypothesis that “It is probably from the Sumerians that later Near Eastern societies, including the Aramaic-speaking authors of the Old Testament, got the notion that marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman.”
They also argue that “The aborigines also show us that, contrary to popular belief, cosmology and religion are not eternal and unchanging. When societies and their situations change, cosmologies get revised as well.” Several of the world’s great monotheistic religions preserve, largely unaltered, the ultimate sacred propositions of Aramaic-speaking societies that lived too long ago to have heard of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Krick, and Watson. Had those sacred propositions being passed on by word-of-mouth instead of imprinted texts, religious cosmology might very well have changed slowly over the centuries to keep pace with scientific cosmology.” 60. “What no one could have foreseen was the invention of the printing press and the fossilisation of a pre-Copernican view of the world. So if today’s multinational religions sometimes seem resistant to social and scientific breakthroughs, Gutenberg will have to share some of the blame.”
I found the definition of some concepts in The Creation of Inequality a little confusing. So, just what made some leaders “kings” was, I felt, unclearly presented, and when I sought a clarification through the index, that was decidedly unhelpful.
The inconsistency of the book was demonstrated when, after five hundred plus pages of interesting accounts of forms of inequality and leadership in many areas of the world, all academically sound, it concluded with some decidedly unscholarly silliness “So the next time a pampered star tells you that his last film made him $20 million, tell him which charity to give to./Then explain that you have not actually seen the film, but that you and your dog have discovered that the DVD makes a great Frisbee.”
As an Australian, I was interested in what the book had to say about the Australian aborigines. I was surprised to find that, despite aborigines inhabiting discreet environments across a vast area, the book periodically treats these peoples as though they and their societies are homogeneous. It does note that there are differences (He reports, for example, that the early pre-colonial Tasmanians had no boomerangs, spear throwers, circumcision, or tree-platform burial). And yet “From the moment they reached Australia, the aborigines began creating new ways to organise society, some of which were still spreading when Europeans arrived.” And “To the Australian aborigines, for example, there was no such thing as inevitable natural death. Death resulted either from homicide or witchcraft.”
Sadly, having made these all-inclusive generalisations, the book then fatuously moralises that the Australian aboriginal woman, Yvonne Goolagong, became an international tennis star, highly regarded by Australians generally for her success. This was an oddly misplaced excursion, apparently to remind us not to be racist.
So, overall, I enjoyed the descriptions and explanations of forms of leadership and inequality (which is different from the title’s “creation of inequality”) but was disappointed with the all too regular discursions into jokiness and moralizing.
I am not entirely sure the contents reflected what the label on the tin said, even allowing for its advertising hyperbole. And the folksy Americentric approach irritated me at times: “Converted to a more militaristic society by the Tongan invasion, the Samoans became legendary warriors. No one who follows American professional football will be surprised by this fact. Picture a war canoe paddled by Manu Tuiasosopo (6’3” and 255 pounds), Tiaina “Junior” Seau (6’3” and 250 pounds), Edwin Mulitalo (6’3” and 340 pounds),” etc etc. I am not sure that this contributes to the scholarly credentials of the book. My concern with the scholarship was extended when the authors offered a foolishly simplistic comparison between England’s Catholic Queen Mary I following Protestant King Edward VI, with the Egyptian religious volte face over Amun and Aten when Akhenaten died.
Then again, there was a vast amount of archaeological and anthropological information in the book and, by and large, the information did lead to a reasonably coherent picture.
Flannery and Marcus tout their methodology which combines archaeology (the discipline with which they are both connected) which does not allow direct observation of human behaviour, with anthropology which allows that direct observation but is hugely displaced from pre-historic times. It remains, I think, an open question as to whether the combination really allows us to see into pre-historic societies.
In a sense, the story begins with the acknowledgement that “Humans share 98% of their DNA with chimpanzees, and chimpanzees are anything but egalitarian. They have alpha males who physically abuse their rivals and beta males who bully everyone but the alphas.” Which rather suggests that we are genetically pre-destined to be hierarchical in social structure. However, it is proposed that “by giving humans the capacity for language and culture, natural selection enabled them” to take a more nuanced course. The higher reasoning powers allowed, or even encouraged something we might see as more altruistic.
It seems that there is general agreement that the broad change from equality to inequality took place at the end of the neolithic hunter-gatherer phase. That concept, itself is, however, an over-simplification, in that the change from hunter-gatherer to sedentary farmer was gradual. The authors mention that, as far back as 75,000 to 55,000 years ago, some bulbs were being cultivated and left, for harvest on the party’s return; grasses were being saved and kept. Fences were being constructed for management of wildlife. And fish were probably being smoked, so that subsistence was not entirely reliant on immediate and fortuitous hunting and gathering. (In fact, good fishing presumably often obviated the need for moving far from a base settlement.)
“The headmen of foraging groups were not bullies. They were generous, modest, and diplomatic, because their constituents were too skilled at alliance-building to put up with bullies”. Yet there is evidently some dispute as to whether such altruism would have worked. The stability of chimpanzee groups derives from their hierarchy. On the other hand, it has apparently been suggested that in early human societies, deities occupied the role of the alpha-chimp.
Elements of agricultural practices were introduced in phases, obviously without perceiving them as moves into a different lifestyle paradigm.
Considerable attention is dedicated in the book to Inuit societies and it seems that they quite commonly actively discourage any trend towards inequality. An assumption is made that, on the basis of similarities between ancient, and recent, observed, Inuit societies, it can be concluded that features identified in recent societies will also have been present in original hunter gatherer communities. On this basis, it is averred that “So crucial was food sharing that the Eskimo used ridicule to prevent hoarding and greed…A skilled hunter and good provider might be universally respected, but even he was expected to be generous and unassuming.” If the skilled hunter boasted of his prowess, he was ridiculed. Thus, the group’s survival was reliant on selfless sharing so there was deliberate repression of individually-focused behaviour. “Generosity is a wide-spread principle among hunters and gatherers, yet constant social pressure must be applied to ensure that individuals continue to be generous.”
This is taken to mean that early transitional societies are likely to have tended towards stable non-hierarchical structures of basic equity. And Inuit behaviours are used to propose that humour could have been a vital tool in the strategy to suppress any individuals who were seeking to move into leadership positions on the basis of their higher skills.
Nevertheless, at some point, inequality appeared – such that it is now ubiquitous.
The authors suggest that one form of transition into hierarchies might have resulted from developments out of gift-giving processes. Apparently, in many circumstances, societies had strict rules preventing the giving of gifts which would make repayment difficult. Honour would require repayment so the original gift had to make repayment a practicable possibility. However, in time, these rules dissolved and some recipients accumulated debt which made them beholden to the original donor. These donors acquired the right to wear differentiating clothing and to have specific privileges such as additional wives. “Because of the desire to be thought of as superior, some hunter-gatherers manipulated cosmologies, reciprocal exchange, social obligations, wealth transfer and the subservience of junior lineages to create societies based on hereditary rank.”
“Many economic historians see in the temple estates the germ of a capitalist society. Early Dynastic temples were profit-making, surplus-accumulating, money-lending, interest-charging corporations, and foreclosure on loans may have driven thousands of needy farmers into servitude.”
This reminds us that leadership could arise in several different dimensions. First, there is the social, whereby the leader effects prominence in the society and is possibly able to order people to take on certain tasks; secondly, in times when conflict, or imperial ambition for additional territory arose, leadership would take what we would see as a military form. Finally, ritual leadership would also become important. We need to remember that there is, contrary to the simple model, some evidence of leadership in hunter-gatherer communities. The extraordinary site of Gobekli Tepe has no evidence of village farming and yet the remarkable ritual structures must have had large work-forces coordinated by some form of leadership. This site also defies the paradigm that foragers had random places and times for ritual practice, compared with the scheduled rituals in specific places for agriculturalists.
Flannery and Marcus argue that “achievement-based leadership” probably arose about 10,000 years ago in the Near East. This, the end of the Ice Age, was also the time of transition to early sedentary farming practices: “Glaciers melted, sea levels rose, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the world’s atmosphere increased from 180 to 280 ppm, a 50 percent increase in just a few thousand years. Since plants grow better at this higher carbon dioxide level, it was a good time to experiment with agriculture.” There was a spread of mutant domestic races of wheat and barley; long-term camps became permanent mutigenerational villages; and fences were erected to corral herd animals, goats, sheep, pigs, and smaller cattle.
The book draws a distinction between hierarchies where leadership is entirely a consequence of an individual’s merit, and those where leadership is inherited. By and large, the former seem to precede the latter, and the book contends that there was commonly some resistance to the subsequent adoption of hereditary leadership. There was, they say, “a long-standing desire” for equality. “The balance they struck between personal ambition and the public good allowed their way of life to endure for centuries.” It is argued that there would need to be an alteration to “the social logic to allow for hereditary privilege”. “Hereditary inequality does not occur without active manipulation of social logic”. (And yet I can not help thinking there would also be an evolutionary pressure towards hereditary privilege. Given that part of the evolutionary model involves transmission of benefit through to later generations, would not those benefits have included social exclusivity providing for guaranteed food supplies and security from personal attack, as well as freer access to a parenting partner?)
Archaeology provides convincing evidence of early inherited rank. Grave goods including such ritualistic items as statuettes, weapons and jewellery are seen as reflecting the high rank of the incumbent. There is nothing in such an adult burial, however, to indicate the source of the rank: notable achievement and leadership, or inheritance. Burials from 7,500 years ago in Mesopotamia show the remains of young children with similar grave goods. The interpretation has been that these are also indicative of rank and that the child would have been too young to have demonstrated hierarchical skills, so their privilege must have been inherited.
Once hereditary inequality took hold, it provided its own justification for increased disparities in wealth and authority. There was an increased separation between settlements and increased conflict, and the conflict led to further potential for inequity. “the ‘us versus them’ mentality of clans justified raiding. The principal of social substitutability meant anyone from another group was fair game. Some raiding parties returned with trophy heads. Others returned with captive women and children, turning them into slaves.” The book refers to a group in Assam where “A man who had be-headed no one was considered such a wimp that he had trouble getting a wife.”
It was an interesting point that the most extreme inequality was where there was a direct relationship between the earthly leader and deities, such as in Egypt. In early Sumer, “Hundreds of rules of social behaviour had allegedly been established by the gods; human priests, judges, and bailiffs were there to make sure that they were followed. The state decided what men were allowed to do, what women were allowed to do, who could marry, who could divorce, who could strike whom, and so on”. And “The rest of human society obeyed the ruler. Only a ruler was powerful enough to have a direct relationship with his city’s patron deity. A commoner interacted only with his tutelary God, a lesser deity who had taken an interest in him.” The authors present, in a slight digression, the interesting hypothesis that “It is probably from the Sumerians that later Near Eastern societies, including the Aramaic-speaking authors of the Old Testament, got the notion that marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman.”
They also argue that “The aborigines also show us that, contrary to popular belief, cosmology and religion are not eternal and unchanging. When societies and their situations change, cosmologies get revised as well.” Several of the world’s great monotheistic religions preserve, largely unaltered, the ultimate sacred propositions of Aramaic-speaking societies that lived too long ago to have heard of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Krick, and Watson. Had those sacred propositions being passed on by word-of-mouth instead of imprinted texts, religious cosmology might very well have changed slowly over the centuries to keep pace with scientific cosmology.” 60. “What no one could have foreseen was the invention of the printing press and the fossilisation of a pre-Copernican view of the world. So if today’s multinational religions sometimes seem resistant to social and scientific breakthroughs, Gutenberg will have to share some of the blame.”
I found the definition of some concepts in The Creation of Inequality a little confusing. So, just what made some leaders “kings” was, I felt, unclearly presented, and when I sought a clarification through the index, that was decidedly unhelpful.
The inconsistency of the book was demonstrated when, after five hundred plus pages of interesting accounts of forms of inequality and leadership in many areas of the world, all academically sound, it concluded with some decidedly unscholarly silliness “So the next time a pampered star tells you that his last film made him $20 million, tell him which charity to give to./Then explain that you have not actually seen the film, but that you and your dog have discovered that the DVD makes a great Frisbee.”
As an Australian, I was interested in what the book had to say about the Australian aborigines. I was surprised to find that, despite aborigines inhabiting discreet environments across a vast area, the book periodically treats these peoples as though they and their societies are homogeneous. It does note that there are differences (He reports, for example, that the early pre-colonial Tasmanians had no boomerangs, spear throwers, circumcision, or tree-platform burial). And yet “From the moment they reached Australia, the aborigines began creating new ways to organise society, some of which were still spreading when Europeans arrived.” And “To the Australian aborigines, for example, there was no such thing as inevitable natural death. Death resulted either from homicide or witchcraft.”
Sadly, having made these all-inclusive generalisations, the book then fatuously moralises that the Australian aboriginal woman, Yvonne Goolagong, became an international tennis star, highly regarded by Australians generally for her success. This was an oddly misplaced excursion, apparently to remind us not to be racist.
So, overall, I enjoyed the descriptions and explanations of forms of leadership and inequality (which is different from the title’s “creation of inequality”) but was disappointed with the all too regular discursions into jokiness and moralizing.
November 4, 2023
How did inequality arise? The question was famously raised by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His answer was controversial, to say the least. He did not have much information to base his analysis on, given that the discovery of humanity being a product of Darwinian evolution was yet to be made. Although there was some information about how hunter-gatherers lived in parts of the world that were being colonized by European traders and settlers, it was fragmentary at best. The book "The Creation of Inequality" by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus does the hard work of summarizing the anthropological and archaeological record to identify the stages and processes that transformed human society from the large degree of equality that characterized nomadic hunter-gatherers (ignoring gender inequality) before about 12,000 years ago. It is a monumental effort, and the results give them the basis to provide some more facts-based answers to Rousseau's question.
Flannery and Marcus present short histories of a large number of societies based on their reading of the available evidence. The focus is to identify markers that give information about the level and type of inequality, political and social changes, and the growth and decay of the societies. The examples range from the Pacific archipelagos, the Central American jungles, the plains of Sumer, to the different Indian societies on North America and more. It is a fascinating account of the diversity of human societies, but there are also many recurring patterns. Flannery and Marcus analyze these patterns in terms of changes of the social logic as a result of the interactions between the natural, political, and spiritual environment with the inventions that were needed to solve day-to-day problems. Several different societies went through changes and stages that display many similarities, despite being far separated from each other in time and space, and having no knowledge of each other. Independent processes displaying similarities are good indicators that there must be some underlying common propensities.
A theme that becomes clear is that one important step providing a foundation for inequality was the formation of more or less permanent settlements. These did not have to be based on agriculture; there are examples of hunter-gatherers that lived in environments with sufficient resources for people to get by without having to move around. This allowed the creation and accumulation private property. Another theme is the forming of achievement-based hierarchies: Persons (men, usually) who were successful gained prestige and could become chiefs, while less successful persons became commoners or even slaves. However, the chiefs could not automatically pass on their status to their children. That would require further social inventions.
The account is complex and wide-ranging. Each society or region is dealt with in separate chapters. One important point is the difference between hereditary inequality in its various shapes, and achievement-based inequality. One point they make is that hereditary inequality can be inferred when the graves of children contain items of luxury and symbols of power; since they could not have achieved this themselves, it indicates that their status depends on inheritance. The historical record shows that the move from achievement-based inequality to hereditary inequality is not inevitable. However, the social logic works strongly in this direction given certain environmental conditions. Formation of large-scale states are most often the result of competition between neighboring chiefdoms.
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of their historical accounts. But the general approach seems sensible, and they do point out when they regard the available data to be insufficient for conclusions to be drawn. I do not get the impression that the authors are trying to push an agenda through tendentious reporting. The book is rather long since the authors cover many different societies, and at times it is hard to keep up with the wealth of details. However, it is hard to see how it could have been done differently without losing the concreteness that is the unique point of their approach.
A question is posed in the final chapter: How can our current societies be made more egalitarian? One response is: Put hunter-gatherers in charge. It is a provoking thought. Exactly how this could be achieved is left unspecified. The authors do not discuss our current Western societies in any depth. They are based on meritocracy, rather than aristocracy and monarchy, at least notionally. This means that modern societies have an ideological basis that implies greater political equality than in the preceding historical era. But at the same time material inequality has increased. How do we analyse the social logic that has produced this state of affairs, and how do we want to change it? This book provides much food for thought about these vital issues.
Flannery and Marcus present short histories of a large number of societies based on their reading of the available evidence. The focus is to identify markers that give information about the level and type of inequality, political and social changes, and the growth and decay of the societies. The examples range from the Pacific archipelagos, the Central American jungles, the plains of Sumer, to the different Indian societies on North America and more. It is a fascinating account of the diversity of human societies, but there are also many recurring patterns. Flannery and Marcus analyze these patterns in terms of changes of the social logic as a result of the interactions between the natural, political, and spiritual environment with the inventions that were needed to solve day-to-day problems. Several different societies went through changes and stages that display many similarities, despite being far separated from each other in time and space, and having no knowledge of each other. Independent processes displaying similarities are good indicators that there must be some underlying common propensities.
A theme that becomes clear is that one important step providing a foundation for inequality was the formation of more or less permanent settlements. These did not have to be based on agriculture; there are examples of hunter-gatherers that lived in environments with sufficient resources for people to get by without having to move around. This allowed the creation and accumulation private property. Another theme is the forming of achievement-based hierarchies: Persons (men, usually) who were successful gained prestige and could become chiefs, while less successful persons became commoners or even slaves. However, the chiefs could not automatically pass on their status to their children. That would require further social inventions.
The account is complex and wide-ranging. Each society or region is dealt with in separate chapters. One important point is the difference between hereditary inequality in its various shapes, and achievement-based inequality. One point they make is that hereditary inequality can be inferred when the graves of children contain items of luxury and symbols of power; since they could not have achieved this themselves, it indicates that their status depends on inheritance. The historical record shows that the move from achievement-based inequality to hereditary inequality is not inevitable. However, the social logic works strongly in this direction given certain environmental conditions. Formation of large-scale states are most often the result of competition between neighboring chiefdoms.
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of their historical accounts. But the general approach seems sensible, and they do point out when they regard the available data to be insufficient for conclusions to be drawn. I do not get the impression that the authors are trying to push an agenda through tendentious reporting. The book is rather long since the authors cover many different societies, and at times it is hard to keep up with the wealth of details. However, it is hard to see how it could have been done differently without losing the concreteness that is the unique point of their approach.
A question is posed in the final chapter: How can our current societies be made more egalitarian? One response is: Put hunter-gatherers in charge. It is a provoking thought. Exactly how this could be achieved is left unspecified. The authors do not discuss our current Western societies in any depth. They are based on meritocracy, rather than aristocracy and monarchy, at least notionally. This means that modern societies have an ideological basis that implies greater political equality than in the preceding historical era. But at the same time material inequality has increased. How do we analyse the social logic that has produced this state of affairs, and how do we want to change it? This book provides much food for thought about these vital issues.
June 25, 2023
An important book for understanding the beginnings of society. I found the authors merging of both archaeology and anthropology to be particularly useful.
May 16, 2014
This is a beast of a read. Its a broad survey on the development of social inequality. The book draws on ethnographic and archaeological data from a broad array of cultures. The early chapters tend, I think naively, to discuss hunter gatherer cultures synchronically. Later chapters discuss "more-complex" societies diachronically. The take home message was that we need to make distinctions between first generation social inequality and later inherited social inequality. The main example is Peru, where multiple empires rose and fell. The final Peruvian empire, the Inca, utilized all the tools of bureaucracy that their forebears developed. Its a good read with many interesting points, but it could have been 300 pages shorter and still effectively delivered its main thesis.
July 21, 2021
Flannery and Marcus are good writers, and there is a great deal of valuable information in the book about ancient history and about diverse social forms. Unfortunately, the authors have included simply too much material. Section after section get bogged down in questionably irrelevant details, and it can be difficult to keep track of the direction of their argument.
Still, anyone interested in the origins of human societies ought to at least give the volume a look.
Still, anyone interested in the origins of human societies ought to at least give the volume a look.
December 9, 2019
Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus, both prominent archaeologists, have produced a magisterial work about the origins of inequality and stratified societies. Their approach is neo-Darwinian and for that they have received strong criticism (e.g. Lane Fargher and Richard Blanton). They have, also, been criticized by Graeber and Wengrow and by Felipe Fernández-Armesto, for their omission to mention that there were rich burials since the Ice Age and therefore that inequality could be found even to the paleolithic hunter gatherer societies. Despite those omissions, weakness of their approach and even faults to some points, their book is impressive. They use a multitude of ethnological and archaeological data to support their thesis. They also introduce a very useful distinction between "achievement based hierarchies" and "hereditary hierarchies". The result is an enjoyable and very informative book. I highly recommend it !
October 16, 2026
This book plods along slowly, supposedly trying to show how social inequality could have arisen in various societies between 15,000 years ago and the spread of Western culture across the globe. Too many jumps between archeological evidence read through the lens of 19th-Century anthropologists' stories of encounters with stateless societies. Too reliant on a Childe-inspired view of history.
Instead of this book, read Sahlins' Stone Age Economics and the book Cities and Citadels (2024) by 5 younger archeologists. Those two combined are half the length of this tiring book but reveal a clearer view of stateless societies and Big Men and accumulation of elite goods, while at the same time revealing the flaws of Childe's model.
DNF, with a feeling of DNR, having died of boredom after 300 pages.
Instead of this book, read Sahlins' Stone Age Economics and the book Cities and Citadels (2024) by 5 younger archeologists. Those two combined are half the length of this tiring book but reveal a clearer view of stateless societies and Big Men and accumulation of elite goods, while at the same time revealing the flaws of Childe's model.
DNF, with a feeling of DNR, having died of boredom after 300 pages.
August 11, 2019
Impressive and thought-provoking, though as others have noted, it can be a bit heavy on cases and relies perhaps too much on Rousseau. I also found the final chapter somewhat disappointing and impractical.
Nonetheless, an epic work tracing the development of societies and their social logic from the Ice Age to the last two millenia and the emergence of empires. They pick out important distinctions between clan less and clan-based, achievement-based and hereditary societies
Nonetheless, an epic work tracing the development of societies and their social logic from the Ice Age to the last two millenia and the emergence of empires. They pick out important distinctions between clan less and clan-based, achievement-based and hereditary societies
October 26, 2023
While I found some of book interesting in the details of prehistoric socities, I found the fact that the Inuit being refered to their incorrect name of eskimo to be distracting and the fact that Inuit is their perferred name. I also found the book to be unecessarily long-winded.
March 22, 2023
Incredible amounts of research, but too densely compiled and ultimately doesn't quite connect convincingly to the central proposition of the text
January 20, 2025
Boring ass book with too many explanations on how humans developed inequality. Weird how bad writing can ruin your whole book
March 23, 2026
Great book for men; the inequality they speak about does not include women
July 13, 2018
A thought-provoking look at inequality and the possible root cause. I did not finish this book before I returned to the library, but I read enough want it for my own library.
June 21, 2019
It took me months to slog through this book. Really, it was filled with a lot of great information, and I can see why they may have erred on the side of exhaustiveness in supporting their arguments, but the book I actually wanted was a more condensed version of this. To some extent I'm glad that I finished this as there were ideas that fascinated me, paradigms that shifted things in my brain, and I certainly was exposed to a lot of the pre-history of human civilization. That said, there was a lot I missed, didn't fully understand, or forgot immediately because really -- this book is aimed at readers with a stronger anthropology/archaeology background.
Will definitely keep around as reference. Would love to read something that expands on one of the ideas here -- that most (if not all) civilizations started with a dominance hierarchy based on alphas -- in the spirit world -- ruling over betas -- early human ancestors that were more powerful and created the society -- and then the living humans, who could pray to betas to intercede on their behalf with the alphas.
It's too bad I got so bogged, because some of the patterns were really interesting. There was just too much here for me to not spend a lot of time in the reeds.
Will definitely keep around as reference. Would love to read something that expands on one of the ideas here -- that most (if not all) civilizations started with a dominance hierarchy based on alphas -- in the spirit world -- ruling over betas -- early human ancestors that were more powerful and created the society -- and then the living humans, who could pray to betas to intercede on their behalf with the alphas.
It's too bad I got so bogged, because some of the patterns were really interesting. There was just too much here for me to not spend a lot of time in the reeds.
January 3, 2016
Interesting but flawed. So much archaeological detail, which is good, but overwhelming at times. Its the sort of book you need to read slowly, a location/civilisation at a time, spread over a month or so. Otherwise the details just blurr into a mess of meaningless names. Its near impossible to remember much of the detail as a novice in the area. I was reading mostly for the details of political organisation in different cultures. - of which it was a unfortunately a little vague at times and confusing. Particularly, around religious practices and governmentality the authors tended to fall into a contemporary conception of religion as separate from the state even in cultures where that did not make sense.
The one major flaw was this tendency of the authors to "jazz up" the writing itself by attempting to drop in "hip" words... or words that were perhaps hip at some point. They actually used "bitch" meaning "to complain" at one point, and there was this odd affection for the term "diss" meaning to denigrate or criticise, a word that had a fleeting popularity when I was a youth. What were the editors thinking? Jesus just take it out.
The one major flaw was this tendency of the authors to "jazz up" the writing itself by attempting to drop in "hip" words... or words that were perhaps hip at some point. They actually used "bitch" meaning "to complain" at one point, and there was this odd affection for the term "diss" meaning to denigrate or criticise, a word that had a fleeting popularity when I was a youth. What were the editors thinking? Jesus just take it out.
November 1, 2012
You have to read this book. Stop what you are doing and read it now. You will gain insights into human nature that will stay with you long after you have finished the last page.
Dozens of authors have tried to write books explaining how certain universal aspects of human nature came into being. This book brings them all to shame. Written by two professional archaeologists, the book carefully explores the evidence of how inequality arose across time and cultures. It brims with insights and is actually entertaining. The authors use humor very well, which is rare in archaeology and anthropology. They also did a masterful job of balancing educated guesses and facts. A great read for all!
Dozens of authors have tried to write books explaining how certain universal aspects of human nature came into being. This book brings them all to shame. Written by two professional archaeologists, the book carefully explores the evidence of how inequality arose across time and cultures. It brims with insights and is actually entertaining. The authors use humor very well, which is rare in archaeology and anthropology. They also did a masterful job of balancing educated guesses and facts. A great read for all!
November 3, 2016
A divided experience. Contains tons of interesting archaeological and anthropological data. I've never seen anything quite like this before. In a way, just what I've looked for for comparison when writing about medieval history myself. In the early parts quite readable and interesting.
But starts to feel more and more like a list, or a list of lists, as it progresses. The argument feels a bit forced as well. And I did not like the "easy" writing style that much (half of the jokes at least could have been cut).
But still, a remarkable achievement in the way it gathers research together. I think I will go back to this as a source for my own writing.
But starts to feel more and more like a list, or a list of lists, as it progresses. The argument feels a bit forced as well. And I did not like the "easy" writing style that much (half of the jokes at least could have been cut).
But still, a remarkable achievement in the way it gathers research together. I think I will go back to this as a source for my own writing.
April 18, 2013
Disappointing and over-generalized survey of data that demonstrates some of the difficulties faced by archaeologists when they try to tie ancient examples of material culture to modern capitalist-state problems.
Want to Read
May 14, 2012
September 10, 2012
dry as kindling but light on biotruths
April 12, 2013
desperately dull, reads like a stitched together series of research papers, possibly useful as an academic reference point, but for home reading only purpose is as a guaranteed sleep-inducer.
Want to Read
April 20, 2015tuebl
Read
June 21, 2013569.9 F585 2012
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