Examining the evidence for social inequality in Europe and Southwest Asia from the Upper Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age

Beskrivelse

The emergence of social inequality in the human past is the subject of long-running debates amongst archaeologists and anthropologists. Social evolutionary narratives that posit a unilineal increase in social inequality and complexity from the end of the Palaeolithic to the emergence of early state societies are being increasingly challenged, yet they are difficult to dispel. They are based in large part on the historical context in which archaeology and anthropology emerged as disciplines in the modern West. This legacy has come under sustained critique, leading scholars to question not just the social evolutionary underpinnings, but our definitions of social inequality as well. Recent research has not only problematized the idea that hunter-gatherers were consistently egalitarian during at least the Upper Palaeolithic, but also the degree to which social inequality was present in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age societies and how it was manifested.

Given these critiques, archaeologists and anthropologists must rethink how social inequality should be approached as an area of study, by considering the specific circumstances and conditions under which fluid and flexible forms of hierarchy and inequality may emerge and how they may have become more permanent and lasting. At the same time, it is necessary to rethink how larger settlements and societies may have organised themselves if we cannot assume that permanent forms of leaderships existed. The transition to agriculture in Southwest Asia and its arrival in Europe is still seen as a key moment that may have engendered the establishment of more permanent and strict social hierarchies. There is now increasing evidence, however, that various forms of social difference may have existed well before the emergence of fully sedentary agropastoralist societies.

Periode	27 maj 2021 → 28 maj 2021
Begivenhedstype	Workshop
Grad af anerkendelse	International