A study of 64 archaeological sites across four continents shows that the growth of agricultural and political systems provoked economic disparities, more so in Eurasia than in North America. See Letter p.619 Beneath headlines about booms and busts and other economic disturbance lies a deeper problem: wealth inequality. But what is its history, and what are the larger social factors that determine the disparate distribution of wealth? Timothy Kohler and colleagues look at the evolution of inequality worldwide since the Neolithic era, around 11,000 years ago, using house size as a proxy for calculating the Gini coefficient, a measure of wealth inequality. The study shows that, as may be expected, wealth inequality has generally increased. Unexpectedly however, inequality increased far more in the Old World of Europe and Asia than in the New (North and Central America). Even in highly urban New World sites, house sizes are generally similar. There are no enormous palaces, which one expects in Old World urban contexts. The authors suggest that the inherent wealth provided by large domesticated animals could explain the imbalance. Horses, for example, allowed people to ride around acquiring wealth from others.

中文翻译：

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考古学：不平等在欧亚大陆根深蒂固

一项对四大洲 64 个考古遗址的研究表明，农业和政治体系的发展引发了经济差距，欧亚大陆的差距比北美更严重。见信第 619 页 在关于繁荣和萧条以及其他经济动荡的头条新闻之下，隐藏着一个更深层次的问题：财富不平等。但它的历史是什么，决定财富分配差异的更大的社会因素是什么？Timothy Kohler 及其同事研究了自大约 11,000 年前的新石器时代以来全球不平等的演变，使用房屋面积作为计算基尼系数的代理，基尼系数是衡量财富不平等的指标。研究表明，正如预期的那样，财富不平等普遍加剧。然而没想到，欧洲和亚洲旧世界的不平等程度远高于新世界（北美洲和中美洲）。即使在高度城市化的新世界站点，房屋大小也大致相似。没有巨大的宫殿，这是旧世界城市环境中人们所期望的。作者认为，大型家养动物提供的内在财富可以解释这种不平衡。例如，马让人们可以骑马从他人那里获取财富。