Uncorrelated Inequalities: A Multiproxy Measure for Household Archaeology

Abstract

Inequality has received increased attention in the social sciences since the 1990s, in part because of the harm it causes and because massive inequality is avoidable. Bolstered by the Gini coefficient, a quantitative measure of unevenness in a distribution that enhances comparative studies across time and space, archaeologists have expanded the study of inequality in recent years. Many of these investigations use multiple variables to assess inequality. A challenge of such multi-proxy studies is that simply averaging Gini coefficients for multiple variables can over-represent inequality in societies where variables for inequality are not correlated. This paper provides an experimental measure—the Domain Sensitivity Gini (DSG)—and applies it to a sample of Maya archaeological case studies with extensive domestic excavations. The DSG helps disambiguate societies where wealth variables are aligned from societies where such variables are not aligned. In cases where variables do not align, different forms of wealth are not strongly correlated: a household that is poor in one domain might be wealthy in other domains. The DSG also suggests that inequality is lower than estimates based on averaged variables. This finding is valuable when set within a broader comparative context because it shows that high inequality seen today is not natural and that ancient case studies are relevant.