Inequality among Ancestral Pueblo Households and Its Impact on Animal Subsistence

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent studies of household inequality in the central Mesa Verde region (CMV) and Chaco Canyon indicate that the degree of wealth inequality among ancestral Pueblo households remained relatively low in the CMV, even as it increased dramatically in Chaco from the mid-800s through the early 1000s, based on Gini coefficients calculated on household floor area as a proxy for wealth. Beginning in the late A.D. 1000s, however, Gini coefficients increased among CMV households as well, reaching values as high as those for Chaco Canyon, and above the median for a recently compiled worldwide sample of prehistoric agriculturalists. This study explores the distribution of faunal remains associated with households from CMV sites to understand how the development of inequality (as reflected by Ginis) impacted subsistence strategies and access to faunal resources.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25423