Assessing grand narratives of economic inequality across time

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2400698121
• Publication Date: 2025-04-14T19:00:31Z
• Authors: Gary M. Feinman; Gabriela Cervante...; Adam Green; Dan Lawrence; Jessica Munson; Scott Ortman; Cameron Petrie; Amy Thompson; Linda M. Nicholas
• Keywords: Leverage (statistics)

Long-entrenched grand narratives have tied inequality in large human aggregations to generally linear trends, a direct outcome of domestication, then fostered by population growth and/or stepped scalar transitions the hierarchical complexity institutions. This general pattern has been argued short-circuit or reverse only context cataclysmic disasters societal breakdowns. Yet, for most part, these universal deterministic frameworks constructed from historical ethnographic snapshots time and afford little systematic attention institutions agency. Here, we leverage quantitative, temporally defined archaeological, data suite global regions, which transitioned through process urbanism complex hierarchy formation, examine shifts degrees over time. Although broad temporal patterns are evidenced, regional trends neither linear, uniform, nor triggered immediately mechanically Malthusian dynamics increases.