This volume, part of McDonald Institute Conversations, is based on a conference held in Cambridge in January 2018. The 18 chapters, which broadly address the circumstances, measures, and implications of inequality among hunter-gatherer-fisher (HGF) societies, are presented in three parts, along with an introduction and a preface by Robert L. Kelly. It is well produced and lavishly illustrated. I agree with Kelly's assessment of the importance of some of the articles, but others, unfortunately, lack critical evaluation of proposed interpretations, especially against possible alternatives, and they are often unable to suggest any means for resolving remaining ambiguities.
Luc Moreau introduces the volume by outlining the conceptual ambiguity and interpretive problems that complicate the archaeological study of inequality among HGFs, particularly in the Pleistocene. Unfortunately, his claim that inequality in the Upper Paleolithic (UP) is still considered a radical proposition gives too much weight to mere suggestion of the possibility.
Part I, which looks at inequality and egalitarianism among extant HGF societies, includes seven chapters ranging from singular case studies to cross-cultural analyses and broad theoretical syntheses. These include studies that highlight the observed and potential roles of mobility and resource distribution (Paul Roscoe), storage (Christophe Darmangeat), age and organizational skill (Alberto Buela), and even competition among children (Rachel Reckin et al.) in supporting emergent inequality, and studies that focus on the roles of residential flexibility (Mark Dyble) and access to lethal weaponry (Duncan N. E. Stibbard-Hawkes) in promoting greater egalitarianism. There remains a large degree of ambiguity in the results and their interpretation, and a noted lack of opportunity for investigating these relationships further. In closing, Robert H. Layton develops a theoretical model based on a necessarily superficial comparison of Australian and Northwest Coast groups, which highlights the roles of resource availability and capacities for storage but also begins to acknowledge the role of specific historical developments within both regions.
Part II focuses on the evidence for social inequality in UP Europe. Although the presentation of evidence and its possible explanations is informative and sometimes fascinating, only one of the six chapters in this section offers what could be described as a systematic and critical evaluation of the available evidence. Evidence is cited to raise the possibility of secret societies (Brian D. Hayden), a role for dogs in enhancing differential access to resources (Mietje Germonpré et al.), the representation of animals in cave art as an expression of animal-based conceptions of social organization (Paul Pettitt), and inequality as indicated in the “artistic education” presumed necessary for the naturalistic depiction of animals (Emmanuel Guy), but these are either highly speculative conclusions or ones based on evidence so widely found among HGFs as to suggest the ubiquity of the inequalities they seek to identify. Matt Groves argues on the basis of primate studies that inequality was the ancestral hominin state but speculates that Magdalenian task specialization may have enhanced status differences. William Davies, in contrast, systematically presents data showing that environmental productivity in UP Europe was below thresholds thought necessary to support social inequality and far below levels for the Pacific Northwest Coast. He stresses the ambiguity of evidence for structural inegalitarianism and the need for detailed localized studies across the full span of the UP.
Each of the five chapters in Part III, which looks at social inequality among Holocene HGFs, engages critically with different classes of data, including settlement and resource distribution in the North Pacific (Ben Fitzhugh); fishing adaptations across Africa (Joe L. Jeffery and Marta Mirazón Lahr); burial and diet at the Mesolithic/Neolithic cemetery of Zvejnieki, Latvia (Rick J. Schulting et al.); rock art in the eastern Sahara (Emmanuelle Honoré); and warfare cross-culturally (Douglas P. Fry et al.). These chapters embody many of the qualities conspicuously absent in much of the rest of the volume. In addition to critical data evaluation, they note nuance and variability among cultural and environmental contexts, consider alternative interpretations, and outline research needed to reach more definitive conclusions. They also highlight the conceptual and methodological biases that influence data selection, analyses, and interpretations. Fitzhugh's chapter is particularly excellent in working from a clear theoretical foundation to show how inequality emerged in Kodiak, Alaska, but not in the Kuril Islands of East Asia, narrating specific histories of developments in each region and effectively decoupling inequality from sedentism and storage. Fitzhugh, Jeffery and Lahr, and Fry et alia stress the opportunity and need to exercise resource control in the face of outside incursion and conflict as critical to the emergence of structural inequality.
All the articles are interesting in different ways, but many convey an impression that archaeology has exhausted the potential of trait lists and ethnographic comparisons, especially to the cultures of the Northwest Coast of North America. Others show clear ways forward toward better understandings of specific forms and histories of inequality through continuing systematic archaeological research and local and regional syntheses of accumulating data. In that sense, the volume represents a watershed in archaeological thought and research on this topic.
