'Inequality' of Stone Age farmers

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Cardiff uni claims evidence of Stone Age 'inequality'

A study of more than 300 Neolithic skeletons suggests evidence of "hereditary inequality" among farmers 7,000 years ago, researchers claim.

Archaeologists from Cardiff University led a team who studied the skeletons from across Europe.

They say evidence suggests farmers buried with tools had access to better land than those buried without.

Dr Penny Bickle, of Cardiff University, said community diversity "probably occurred through inheritance".

The research was conducted by archaeologists from Cardiff, Bristol and Oxford universities, and others across Europe.

Read more...

[Eldorado]

Survival of the strongest and smartest will always mean hereditary inequality, no?

(Left my thinking-cap at work)

Edited May 29, 2012 by Eldorado

[Taun]

It could be just the divide between agriculture and just gathering wild crops... An agricultural society will nearly always be healthier and better fed than a society that just forages for food...

Perhaps the ones buried with farming tools, were the society that used (primitive) agriculture and the ones without did not...

Isn't the time period of 7000 years ago 'about when' humans in general developed agriculture?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

It could be just the divide between agriculture and just gathering wild crops... An agricultural society will nearly always be healthier and better fed than a society that just forages for food...

Perhaps the ones buried with farming tools, were the society that used (primitive) agriculture and the ones without did not...

Isn't the time period of 7000 years ago 'about when' humans in general developed agriculture?

That would depend on whether bodies both with and without tools were found at the same burial places, in which case the differentiation would have to be within the same society. Unfortunately the original article doesn't make it clear whether this is the case or not.