From ANN (Archaeology News Network):
A long-standing debate in the field of cultural evolution has revolved around the question of how and why human societies become more hierarchical. Some theorize that material changes to a society's resources or subsistence strategies lead it to become more hierarchical; others believe that hierarchy is the cause rather than the result of these changes. Many see the answer as being somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes. In order to test these theories, a group of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Auckland examined 155 Austronesian societies, the results of which are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Diverse societies with similar cultural ancestry
The societies examined had a geographical range stretching from Taiwan to New Zealand, Madagascar to Easter Island. They are also diverse in terms of social stratification and agricultural practices, making them a good fit for the study. "The Pacific is an ideal setting to test these ideas," explains senior author Quentin Atkinson, of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Auckland. "It's like a giant natural experiment with populations spread across hundreds of islands with different political institutions and modes of subsistence. And we know the cultural ancestry of these populations because it is encoded in the languages they speak."
These societies varied from egalitarian to rigidly stratified, and their agricultural systems ranged from among the least intensive to the most intensive in the pre-modern world - the rice terraces built by the Ifugao people of the Philippines have often been described as the "eighth wonder of the world."
Intensive agriculture and social hierarchies in a feedback loop
The results of the study showed that there was not a simple causal connection between changes in a society's mode of agriculture and increasing hierarchy. Although in many cases agricultural intensification appeared to coevolve with sociopolitical hierarchy, in other cases, these traits appeared independently of each other. When both traits did appear, it was not always the case that intensive agriculture came first. "There's a widely held view that material changes to the environment drive social evolution and not the reverse," states Atkinson. "Our findings challenge that view and show that the causal arrow actually goes both ways."...MORE
To Create A "1%" In A Social Hierarchy You Don't Need An Economic Surplus, Just A Storable Form Of Wealth
So there I was, reading the abstract of "Hazelnut economy of early Holocene hunter–gatherers: a case study from Mesolithic Duvensee, northern Germany", thinking about Nutella and Frangelico when this grabbed my eye:
...High-resolution analyses of the excellently preserved and well-dated special task camps documented in detail at Duvensee, Northern Germany, offer an outstanding opportunity for case studies on Mesolithic subsistence and land use strategies. Quantification of the nut utilisation demonstrates the great importance of hazelnuts. These studies revealed very high return rates and allow for absolute assessments of the development of early Holocene economy. Stockpiling of the energy rich resource and an increased logistical capacity are innovations characterising an intensified early Mesolithic land use...Stockpiling, storage, commodities, well that's right in our wheelhouse,* and if I can combine it with the last remnants of interest in Piketty's approach to inequality.....maybe I can synthesize something halfway original...
Yeah, it's already been done—Cereals, appropriability, and hierarchy... —....MORE
Related:
Following Up On "Commodity traders superior to chimpanzees": The Importance of Pockets
...The report becomes particularly readable when it speculates on the reasons why [chimps are lousy traders]: because of their lack of property ownership norms...And more dryly:
...or, for that matter, pockets.... ...chimpanzees in nature do not store property and thus would have little opportunity to trade commodities...
