Pathways to Power New Perspectives on the Emergence of Social Inequality /

• Corporate Author: SpringerLink (Online service)
• Other Authors: Price, T. Douglas (Editor), Feinman, Gary M. (Editor)
• Format: Electronic eBook
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY : Springer New York : Imprint: Springer, 2010.
• Series: Fundamental Issues in Archaeology,
• Subjects: Social sciences.; History.; Archaeology.; Social structure.; Social inequality.; Social Sciences.; Social Structure, Social Inequality.; History, general.

There are few questions more central to understanding the prehistory of our species than those regarding the institutionalization of social inequality. Social inequality is manifested in unequal access to goods, information, decision-making, and power. This structure is essential to higher orders of...

Table of Contents:

• Social Inequality and the Evolution of Human Social Organization
• On the Evolution of the Human Capacity for Inequality and/or Egalitarianism
• Degrees and Kinds of Inequality
• Gimme That Old Time Religion: Rethinking the Role of Religion in the Emergence of Social Inequality
• Who Benefits from Complexity? A View from Futuna
• Traces of Inequality at the Origins of Agriculture in the Ancient Near East
• Decentralized Complexity: The Case of Bronze Age Northern Europe
• Bitter Arrows and Generous Gifts: WhatWas a ‘King’ in the European Iron Age?
• A Dual-Processual Perspective on the Power and Inequality in the Contemporary United States: Framing Political Economy for the Present and the Past.