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Mark McCoy serves as a professor of anthropology and an archaeologist in the Department of Anthropology at Florida State University, where his studies concentrate on ancient cultures of the Pacific Islands — such as Hawai’i, New Zealand, and Rapa Nui — along with the interaction between humans and their surroundings. McCoy is a member of a global, multi-institution collaboration examining the connection between warfare and inequality over the previous 10,000 years. Their findings were released this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
What inspired this study?
Our team consists of archaeologists who specialize in various global regions and share an interest in inequality, particularly the emergence and dynamics of wealth and economic disparity. Archaeological findings and housing evidence trace back tens of thousands of years, as does the manifestation of inequality. For instance, analyzing archaeological records, we observe a village where all residents lived in similarly sized houses, leading us to conclude that there was minimal inequality during that period in contrast to records revealing one substantial house situated beside numerous smaller ones. We compiled an archaeological database featuring over 55,000 housing floor area measurements from regions including North America, South America, East Asia, Europe, and Oceania from pre-industrial societies around 12,000 years ago up to the recent past with the onset of industrialization, aiming to create a comprehensive record of inequality.
In addition to house sizes, we collected data on whether these communities were somehow fortified, walled, or defended due to conflicts or warfare. We began to explore whether such fortifications impacted inequality — are we observing patterns where warfare escalates wealth gaps, or do we find warfare acting as a leveling force promoting equality during conflicts? The outcome varies according to the time period examined and specific community characteristics, highlighting the dynamics of inequality over time.
In ancient times, was there a correlation between war or conflict and inequality?
Between 10,000 years ago and roughly 5,000 years ago, there is considerable evidence of fortifications and warfare in settlements. However, during conflicts, warfare acted as a leveling mechanism, and evidence of inequality is scarce — houses from this time period tended to be similar in size. This suggests that in early, more collectively organized societies, conflict and warfare did not exacerbate inequality within these communities.
At what point does the connection between war and inequality become evident?
Warfare begins to be linked to rising inequality under specific community conditions, such as the availability of land as a limited resource. Factors considered include how communities cultivated and produced their food, as the amount of arable land becomes a restricting factor for agriculture. For instance, in the islands I studied, increasing the population of a community doesn’t necessarily lead to more food production due to insufficient arable land. That’s when the balance tilts — these conditions mark the onset of warfare intensifying inequality. When land turns into a scarce and monopolizable resource, that’s when inequality significantly escalates.
Another factor we assess is governance. In each community we scrutinized, were there indicators of active governance resembling the collective governance noted in modern society, or was the governance more authoritarian and less collective? We found that warfare increased inequality in communities characterized by less collective governance and more authoritarian structures.
How were these records compiled?
A distinctive aspect of this research is that we did not conduct field excavations ourselves — we analyzed information from published studies and leveraged extensive fieldwork and research conducted over many years to compile our data. In creating our database, we gathered readily accessible information from prior excavations and utilized techniques such as remote sensing and LiDAR, which employs light detection and ranging to reveal new insights into building forms and orientations. To me, this represents a significant component of archaeology’s future: harnessing quantitative data we already possess, like a house’s square footage and a settlement’s number of fortifications, to explore questions regarding the qualitative aspects and unveil new insights using existing archaeological evidence.
What should people know about this study?
As archaeologists and anthropologists, we are focused on understanding why phenomena such as inequality occur. This research highlights critical elements contributing to this, including the scarcity of land in particular communities. It also demonstrates that certain communities managed to govern themselves collectively, thereby reducing inequality, and illustrates the complex interplay between conflict and inequality. Utilizing archaeological records, we identified the factors driving inequality, which introduces a novel approach to the discipline of archaeology.
To explore further research undertaken in the FSU Department of Anthropology, visit anthro.fsu.edu.
The post 5 Questions with Mark McCoy: War and Inequality first appeared on Florida State University News.
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