ISSN:
0091-7710
Language:
English
Titel der Quelle:
Journal of anthropological research
Publ. der Quelle:
Chicago, IL : The University of Chicago Press
Angaben zur Quelle:
Vol. 72, No. 2 (2016), p. 200-225
DDC:
100
Abstract:
Household refuse is ideally suited for the comparative study of social and economic inequality. Compositional variation revealed by nonmetric multidimensional scaling of artifact assemblage data from multiple households is readily interpreted as evidence for qualitative differences in social prestige, wealth, and productive activities. Different configurations of these variables reflect differences in social structure and the underlying bases of inequality between communities. Comparing the average of the Euclidean distances from which each scaling was produced provides a direct and quantitative means of assessing differences in the magnitude of assemblage differences interpreted as social inequality between cases. Gini indices calculated from the same household artifact assemblage data provide a similarly direct and quantitative means of measuring differences in wealth inequality between communities. In this paper, household artifact assemblage data from three Neolithic settlements in three different areas of northern China are analyzed. Our analysis reveals differences between some of China’s earliest complex societies in terms of the kinds and degrees of inequality represented.
Note:
Copyright: © 2016 by The University of New Mexico. All rights reserved.
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Copyright: © COPYRIGHT 2016 University of New Mexico
URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/686312
URL:
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1791897457
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