Archaeology of equality: Magdalenian economy

This chapter considers what equality means and what it took to create equality in the past. It examines a variety of related topics: • the history of equality in archaeology (social differentiation precedes institutionalization of inequality and hierarchies may exist in egalitarian context), • what is equality, • the issue of sameness, • lateral and vertical equality, and • the theory of equality including equal treatment, outcome opportunity, resources, and welfare models. After considering ethnographic examples of equality, a testable theory and model for equality in a Magdalenian domestic economy is developed. Simulating over extended time periods the two different "sharing and resharing" patterns exhibited at different Magdalenian sites (linear at Verberie and star shaped at Pincevent), it is shown that one creates inequality and the other equality. Thus, as far back as the Magdalenian, basic answers to questions of social ngovernance already were differentiated in a simplified form. Should a society guarantee the equality of conditions and resources or the equality of opportunity? The resulting decisions made during the late Paleolithic (approximately15,000 BP) made an important difference and they still make the difference.