In 'Architects of change', archaeologist #TanjaSchreiber offers personal experience of Graeber + Wengrow’s book as empowering and emancipatory for her research. Refusal to accept narratives of ‘linear progression from simplicity to complexity’ at once sweeps away the old evolutionist, stageist models that still haunt archaeology (but not really evolutionary anthropology). With a fascinating case study of W Siberian foragers who built fortified settlements over eight millenia, she is able to show long-term oscillation between greater and lesser social inequality. Pushback and contestation over growing inequality may be seen in conscious manipulation of space within the settlements. As ‘“architects” of their own social arrangements’, people of these Siberian communities fostered denser cohabitation, perhaps strengthening communal solidarity to resist inequalities. Analysis of Gini coefficients shows a zigzag in direction of change.

#archaeology #huntergatherers #WesternSiberia #fortifications #socialinequality #Ginicoefficients

https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/hgr.2022.4