ABSTRACT

Archaeologists have adopted the Gini coefficient to evaluate unequal accumulations of material, supporting narratives modelled on modern inequality discourse. Proxies are defined for wealth and the household, to render 21st century-style economic tensions perceptible in the past. This ‘property paradigm’ treats material culture as a generic rather than substantive factor in unequal pasts. We question this framing while suggesting that the Gini coefficient can prompt a deeper exploration of value. Our study grows from multi-material evaluation of inequality at Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Here we use the Gini coefficient to scrutinise distributions of burial practices among houses. To the expectations of the property paradigm, the result is unintuitive – becoming slightly more equal despite rising social complexity. We explore possible explanations for this result, each pointing to a more substantive link between past futures and differentiated lives as a framework for archaeologies of inequality.

摘要

考古学家采用基尼系数来评估物质的不平等积累，支持以现代不平等话语为模型的叙述。代理是针对财富和家庭定义的，使21世纪式的经济紧张成为过去式。这种“财产范式”将物质文化视为不平等过去的一般因素而不是实质性因素。我们质疑这一框架，同时建议基尼系数可以促进对价值的更深入探索。我们的研究源于对土耳其加塔霍裕克不平等现象的多材料评估。在这里，我们使用基尼系数来检查不同房屋之间埋葬方式的分布。对于财产范式的期望来说，结果是不直观的——尽管社会复杂性不断上升，但变得稍微更加平等。我们探讨了这一结果的可能解释，每一种解释都指出过去的未来和差异化的生活之间存在更实质性的联系，作为不平等考古学的框架。