The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire

by Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674069732
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	05/07/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	648
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Kent Flannery is James B. Griffin Distinguished University Professor of Anthropological Archaeology and Curator of Human Ecology and Archaeobiology at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, University of Michigan.

Joyce Marcus is Robert L. Carneiro Distinguished University Professor of Social Evolution and Curator of Latin American Archaeology at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, University of Michigan.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 2: Rousseau’s “State of Nature”

Rousseau felt that to understand the origins of inequality, one had to go back to a long-ago time when Nature provided all human needs, and the only differences among individuals lay in their strength, agility, and intelligence. People had both “anarchic freedom” (no government or law) and “personal freedom” (no sovereign master or immediate superior). Individuals of that time, which Rousseau called the State of Nature, displayed self-respect but eschewed self-love.

Most anthropologists do not like the phrase “State of Nature.” They do not believe in a time when archaic modern humans had so little culture that their behavior was directed largely by nature. While conceding that the capacity for culture is the result of natural selection, anthropologists argue that humans themselves determine the content of their culture. Many anthropologists, therefore, bristle when evolutionary psychologists presume to tell them which parts of human social behavior are “hardwired into the cerebral cortex.”

Suppose, however, that we pose a less controversial question to anthropologists: What form of human society, because of its highly egalitarian nature, best serves as a starting point for the study of inequality? In that case, many anthropologists would answer, “those hunting and gathering societies who possess no groupings larger than the extended family.”

In this chapter we examine four such societies: the traditional Caribou and Netsilik Eskimo, who lived in a setting as cold as Ice Age Europe, and the traditional Basarwa and Hadza, who lived in a world of African game like many of our earliest ancestors. We do not look at the 21st-century descendants of those ethnic groups; we look, instead, at the way they lived when anthropologists first contacted them. The less altered by contact with Western civilization any foraging group was when first described, the more useful that group’s description is to our reconstruction of ancient life.

Some of the first Westerners to visit clanless foragers considered them Stone Age people frozen in time. This idea was so naïve and demeaning that it triggered a backlash. Soon revisionists were claiming that recent foragers can tell us nothing about the past, because they are merely the victims of expanding civilization. That revisionism went too far, and now the pendulum is swinging back to a more balanced position.

Some of the most eloquent spokespersons for the balanced position are anthropologists who have spent years among foragers. The late Ernest S. (“Tiger”) Burch, Jr., who devoted a lifetime to arctic hunters, conceded that the industrialized nations’ tendency to swallow up ethnic minorities has left few foraging societies unaltered. This situation does not mean, however, that we cannot make use of recent foragers to understand their prehistoric counterparts. What we need to do, according to Burch, is to select a distinct form of society —- clanless foragers would be one example —- and create a model of that society that can be compared to both ancient and modern groups. If we do our work well, some aspects of our model should apply to all clanless foragers, regardless of when they lived. In other words, if you find that the foragers of 10,000 years ago were doing something that their counterparts were still doing in the year 1900, that behavior can hardly have resulted from the impact of Western civilization.

One of the most important behaviors we look at in this chapter is the creation of widespread networks of cooperating neighbors. We also examine the archaeological record for comparable networks in the distant past.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface Part I: Starting Out Equal One - Genesis and Exodus Two - Rousseau’s “State of Nature” Three - Ancestors and Enemies Four - Why Our Ancestors Had Religion and the Arts Five - Inequality without Agriculture Part II: Balancing Prestige and Equality Six - Agriculture and Achieved Renown Seven - The Ritual Buildings of Achievement-Based Societies Eight - The Prehistory of the Ritual House Nine - Prestige and Equality in Four Native American Societies Part III: Societies That Made Inequality Hereditary Ten - The Rise and Fall of Hereditary Inequality in Farming Societies Eleven - Three Sources of Power in Chiefly Societies Twelve - From Ritual House to Temple in the Americas Thirteen - Aristocracy without Chiefs Fourteen - Temples and Inequality in Early Mesopotamia Fifteen - The Chiefly Societies in Our Backyard Sixteen - How to Turn Rank into Stratification: Tales of the South Pacific Part IV: Inequality in Kingdoms and Empires Seventeen - How to Create a Kingdom Eighteen - Three of the New World’s First- Generation Kingdoms Nineteen - The Land of the Scorpion King Twenty - Black Ox Hides and Golden Stools Twenty-One - The Nursery of Civilization Twenty-Two - Graft and Imperialism Twenty-Three - How New Empires Learn from Old Part V: Resisting Inequality Twenty-Four - Inequality and Natural Law Notes Sources of Illustrations Index

Editorial Reviews

Flannery and Marcus are two of the most distinguished anthropological archaeologists in the world. The Creation of Inequality distills two lifetimes of work on the origin and evolution of complex societies throughout the ancient world. This work brings much of this together in an eminently readable and fascinating way.

Charles S. Stanish

Extraordinarily erudite… It would be an excellent addition to collections on the rise of civilization or on how to use the data gathered by cultural anthropologists and archaeologists to understand broad patterns of social change. Professionals in the field will also benefit from this tour de force by two of archaeology’s most provocative scholars.

Choice - L. L. Johnson

This is a work of profound importance… [It] yields insights into a multitude of societies in the recent and prehistoric past… Flannery and Marcus’s magnum opus… [This] is a deeply impressive achievement.

London Review of Books - Steven Mithen

Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus have done a remarkable job in synthesizing the two key disciplines of social anthropology and archaeology, and their book represents a significant advance in our understanding of the evolution of complex societies.

Times Literary Supplement - Peter Turchin

By carefully articulating and integrating archaeological and ethnographic data, Flannery and Marcus present a panoramic view of the development of particular cultures in various parts of the world. Moreover, in selecting case studies the authors have gone beyond the familiar examples so often cited in anthropology textbooks. The Creation of Inequality promises to be a landmark work.

Robert L. Carneiro

The origin of inequality is one of the most basic questions about human societies. We all arose from egalitarian hunter/gatherer ancestors. Why, then, do almost all of us poor peasants now tolerate affluent leaders, whether they are democratically elected presidents or military dictators? In this clear, readable survey, the distinguished archaeologists Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus extract the answers by comparing the histories of societies over the whole world for the last 10,000 years. This book will become the standard account of long-term political evolution.

Jared Diamond

Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus have done a remarkable job in synthesizing the two key disciplines of social anthropology and archaeology, and their book represents a significant advance in our understanding of the evolution of complex societies.
— Peter Turchin Times Literary Supplement

This is a work of profound importance… [It] yields insights into a multitude of societies in the recent and prehistoric past… Flannery and Marcus’s magnum opus… [This] is a deeply impressive achievement.
— Steven Mithen London Review of Books

Extraordinarily erudite… It would be an excellent addition to collections on the rise of civilization or on how to use the data gathered by cultural anthropologists and archaeologists to understand broad patterns of social change. Professionals in the field will also benefit from this tour de force by two of archaeology’s most provocative scholars.
— L. L. Johnson Choice

This provocative work, likely to become an important contribution to the literature of social and political anthropology, will be of interest both to scholars in the field and to anthropology and archaeology enthusiasts seeking understanding of the development and perpetuation of inequality in human societies.
— Elizabeth Salt Library Journal

The origin of inequality is one of the most basic questions about human societies. We all arose from egalitarian hunter/gatherer ancestors. Why, then, do almost all of us poor peasants now tolerate affluent leaders, whether they are democratically elected presidents or military dictators? In this clear, readable survey, the distinguished archaeologists Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus extract the answers by comparing the histories of societies over the whole world for the last 10,000 years. This book will become the standard account of long-term political evolution.
— Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse

By carefully articulating and integrating archaeological and ethnographic data, Flannery and Marcus present a panoramic view of the development of particular cultures in various parts of the world. Moreover, in selecting case studies the authors have gone beyond the familiar examples so often cited in anthropology textbooks. The Creation of Inequality promises to be a landmark work.
— Robert L. Carneiro, Ph.D., Curator Emeritus and Professor Emeritus, Anthropology, Richard Gilder Graduate School at the American Museum of Natural History

Flannery and Marcus are two of the most distinguished anthropological archaeologists in the world. The Creation of Inequality distills two lifetimes of work on the origin and evolution of complex societies throughout the ancient world. This work brings much of this together in an eminently readable and fascinating way.
— Charles S. Stanish, Ph.D., Director, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, and Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles

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