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This work was undertaken as part of the NSF-funded GINI Project, hosted by the Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis. It reveals that value of bringing diverse archaeological datasets together. Consider joining today! www.archsynth.org/project/long...

archsynth.org

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Our work challenges entrenched views. Data from the past suggests we need to toss out old ideas about inevitably rising inequality, and add new evidence to debates about how to get inequality under control today.

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This fantastic result highlights the value of deep-past data. It reveals that archaeology is essential not just for learning about ancient societies, but for figuring out how human economies could (and should) work today.

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We found that Gini coefficients, already low in the city’s earliest levels, declined over time to just 0.23—the same as many of the world’s first villages. This coincided with a rise in house size, suggesting the city prospered as housing was fairly distributed.

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We applied the Gini coefficient, an economic statistic that measures disparity within a particular distribution, to >300 houses that were excavated by thousands of archaeologists nearly 100 years ago in Sindh, part of Pakistan today.

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While it is well known that the city’s houses rival palaces elsewhere—complete with bathrooms and second stories—we can now see the city made this housing available to everyone. Once again, we find a strong egalitarian impulse in an unexpected place.

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However, material evidence from the world’s first cities, where those benefits were sharpest, strongly contradicts this view. A large and growing body of archaeological evidence that finds this simply is not the case!

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Many people (including policymakers) assume that inequality is a defining trait of urbanism—that to get the benefits of cities, increased innovation and productivity, societies have to, on some level, tolerate a widening gap between rich and poor.

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Inequality declined in the Bronze Age city of Mohenjo-daro | Antiquity | Cambridge Core

In a new article for @antiquity.ac.uk, we find that a quantitative analysis of housing at Mohenjo-daro, one of the world’s first cities, reveals that inequality sharply declined over time. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

Inequality declined in the Bronze Age city of Mohenjo-daro

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Colleen Morgan @clmorgan.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Archaeologist Carole Crumley talking about heterarchies, if you are looking to cite someone in addition to Mark Fisher wrt capitalist realism. The ability to dream outside of hierarchies and the state should be taught by every archaeologist. GOOD MORNING

“the inability even to think of power wielded and maintained in the absence of hierarchy implies an alarming lack of both imagination and powers of observation”

From: Crumley, C. L. (1987). A Dialectical Critique of Hierarchy. In T. C. Patterson and C. W. Gailey (eds.) Power relations and state formation. Washington, D.C: American Anthropological Association, 155–69. Available: https://archive.org/details/powerrelationsst0000unse

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Catherine Frieman @cjfrieman.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Really pleased this collaboration with @carlyschuster.bsky.social is finally published! We lean on queer feminist theory to discuss kinship as a dynamic set of relations and map their flow around funerary rites - we see burials as cannily assembled, not simple mirrors of the living world

doi.org

Matters of Life and Death: Kin-work at Funerals | Cambridge Archaeological Journal | Cambridge Core

Matters of Life and Death: Kin-work at Funerals - Volume 36 Issue 2

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Tom Booth @boothicus.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

🏺How we can talk about kin in the archaeological record in a world where establishing genetic relatedness with aDNA is relatively routine and perhaps become somewhat domineering in the conversation.

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Internet Archaeology @intarcheditor.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Archaeology is a driver of scientific innovation. Rather than being a perceived financial burden, it is actually a high-value investment that can improve human health and environmental sustainability. 🏺1/7 doi.org/10.11141/ia....

doi.org

Legacy and Springboard: The Untapped Potential of Archaeological Archives for Scientific Innovation

Archaeological archives form a public resource that enables the reinterpretation of original findings from archaeological investigations, provides the raw material for further research, informs mu...

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David Graeber Institute @davidgraeberinst.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Can We Learn from the Indus Peoples’? Talk this Thursday for those interested in Anthropology. youtu.be/MXHsj2sU5l0

youtu.be

Can We Learn from the Indus Peoples’?

YouTube video by Institute of David Graeber

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Penny Bickle @pennybickle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

The special issue this is based on is now published - all papers are open access! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

Latest issue | Cambridge Archaeological Journal | Cambridge Core

Cambridge Archaeological Journal

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Adam S. Green @adamsgreen.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

What does an ancient civilisation built when it doesn't need palaces? Looking forward to discussing this question in a public conversation with the David Graeber Institute and Human Bridges project. Tune in if you are keen! #Inequality #Archaeology davidgraeber.institute/a-civilizati...

davidgraeber.institute

A Civilization That Thrived Without Palaces: Can We Learn from the Indus Peoples’?

David Graeber Institute Archaeology & Architecture is a new monthly series organized by the David Graeber Institute and Human Bridges project. How have living spaces shaped

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Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 06/04/2026

From ancient Egyptian temples to the colonial destruction of Benin City, our #AfricanArchaeology collection contains tons of free and #OpenAccess research from across the entire continent! Check it out at www.cambridge.org/core/journal... 🏺 #Archaeology

cambridge.org

African Archaeology

Explore a curated collection of our recent articles on the archaeology of Africa

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Adam S. Green @adamsgreen.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

What do archaeologists and ecological economists have in common? Both disciplines know that GDP is problematic, and that we can learn more about human economies by measuring their material worlds To bring these disciplines together, we are guest editing a collection for JAMT. #sustainability

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Adam S. Green @adamsgreen.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Had the pleasure of speaking to Amn Kaur about Mohenjo-daro's role in helping us understanding ancient #democracy on BBC Radio on Monday. Tune in if you have a chance- we chat at about 30 minutes in. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

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Adam S. Green @adamsgreen.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

CfAS projects featured prominently at the Lessons from the Past conference! It's no susprise; archaeological synthesis can contextualize pressing challenges and offer points of comparison that allow us to see what worked (and what didn’t) in the past. www.archsynth.org/archaeologic...

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Cambridge University Press - Archaeology @cambup-archaeology.cambridge.org · 23/03/2026

The Paper of the Month from @antiquity.ac.uk is "Detecting social differences in diet in medieval towns: isotopic evidence from Cambridge, England, c. AD 940–1538" by Alice K. Rose et al., available #openaccess! 📚 cup.org/4lGBVwG #antiquity #archaeology #PaperOfTheMonth

The cover of Antiquity journal with a detailed terrain beside a body of water. Beside the cover is the text "Antiquity" and "Paper of the Month"

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Adam S. Green @adamsgreen.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Heading to Liverpool for the "Lessons from the Past" conference. I'm presenting GINI work on how the #archaeology of #Inequality can shape debates about taxation today. We close by drafting policy briefs to link the past to the UN #SDGs. #Sustainability lessonsfromthepast.info/programme/

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A deep time perspective reminds as that collective power-sharing isn't a modern luxury- it's a sustainable way to organise human life. @garyfeinerman.bsky.social @archaeojake.bsky.social @dl-arch.bsky.social @stasavage.bsky.social @dmcarballo.bsky.social @jlmunson.bsky.social

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Inequality is a political choice: We found a clear correlation between autocratic governance and high material inequality. Collective systems, by contrast, tend to foster more equitable distributions of wealth.

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Follow the Money: Governance is shaped by "fiscal financing." When rulers control "external" resources (like mines and loot from abroad), autocracy flourishes. When political systems instead rely on "internal" taxpayer support, power-sharing becomes a necessity.

Scale ≠ Despotism: Increasing population size does not automatically produce autocracy. Large, complex societies have successfully functioned through collective governance for centuries.

Many people think that democracy is a recent innovation, a quirk of ancient history in the Mediterranean that re-emerged in the modern era. Earlier societies were thus despotic and autocratic. The data show that many people are wrong. Three key findings shift the conversation:

The distribution of power and inclusiveness across deep time

Democracy isn't a modern luxury—it's a political strategy with deep roots. In our new study for Science Advances, we analyse 40 different societies and develop a framework for measuring human governance along a collective-autocratic axis. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Democratic practice in the premodern world was not the exclusive domain of Greece and Rome.

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Jake Holland-Lulewicz @archaeojake.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Press release for our new paper! “…people across the world created inclusive political systems, even under difficult conditions…An understanding of the hallmarks of autocracy and democracy can help identify threats and pump the brakes on burgeoning totalitarian regimes.” phys.org/news/2026-03...

phys.org

New study shows democracy has deep global roots—not just Greece and Rome

A new study on ancient societies from around the world is rewriting what we thought we knew about democracy. A team of researchers analyzed archaeological and historical evidence from 31 ancient socie...

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Hilary Cottam @hilarycottam.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

If you are in the UK Civil Service- a DD or aspiring DD - this is an opportunity to work with me, England’s Upland Communities and @DefraGovUK on system transformation - please share widely a fantastic opportunity for a brilliant candidate civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?j…

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Archaeology Data Service @ads-update.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

🔬A compelling reuse case for ADS data from @adamsgreen.bsky.social - medieval archaeological records from Wharram Percy repurposed to model early social metabolism and inform pathways beyond fossil fuel dependency ⬇️ #data #reuse

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This work is made possible by the unique interdisciplinary environment at the @york.ac.uk, which bridges the @uoyarchaeology.bsky.social and @uoyenvironment.bsky.social.

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But our study isn't all about the past. It's about building a new transdisciplinary framework for understanding how human societies can flourish within their environmental limits.

Our study brings a new approach to both #archaeology and #ecologicaleconomics, contributing to debates about social metabolism and medieval economics.

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We find that it took massive inflows of both pottery and building stone to maintain the village's stock, which peaked around 1350 (around the same time as the Black Death), then plateaued—a pattern similar to some rural economies today.

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By measuring pottery and building stone instead of assessing flawed monetary metrics like GDP, we highlight how a pre-fossil fuel economy actually functioned.

Using the incredible @ads-update.bsky.social's archive from the medieval village of Wharram Percy, we map out stocks and flows for over 500 years @englishheritage.bsky.social

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In a new paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science, we adapt Material Flow Accounting (MFA)—a staple of ecological economics—to archaeological data for the first time.