Episode 123 - The Good Old Days: Prehistoric Inequality

This week's episode is a listener-sponsored one! Ancient hunter-gatherers are often painted as egalitarian, with all members contributing to the needs of the group. But what does evidence from prehistory say about things like access to nutrition, or care for the sick or injured? Are there cases where some individuals were clearly treated differently from others? How far back can we go to find clues? Stay tuned, sleuths.

Image: A Mbendjele hunter organizes meat for community sharing after a hunt. Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

Did agriculture create inequality? (Scientific American)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-the-first-farmers-arrived-in-europe-inequality-evolved/

Hunter-gatherer envy (SAPIENS)

https://www.sapiens.org/culture/hunter-gatherer-inequality-namibia/

Issues with using modern forager groups as proxy for ancient ones

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/evan.21869

Deliberate burial? For all, or just some? (SAPIENS)

https://www.sapiens.org/culture/hominin-burial/

Sunghir burials (SAPIENS)

https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/paleolithic-burial-sunghir/

Different types of burials at Sunghir (Antiquity)

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/diversity-and-differential-disposal-of-the-dead-at-sunghir/B7672FB594E94A505A35E10C869F3808

Status-symbol scapulae?

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-019-01004-1