Johannes Krause / Museum of the Krapina Neanderthals
A new study is challenging one of anthropology’s most firm beliefs: the idea that the first human societies were truly egalitarian. Equality of wealth, status, power, and even marriage prospects, “are more fiction than reality”.
For generations, both academics and popular culture have described groups of hunter-gatherers as models of equality, free from wealth inequalities or social hierarchies.
However, according to a new study, conducted by evolutionary anthropologists Duncan Stibbard-Hawkesfrom Baylor University, and Chris von Ruedenfrom the University of Richmond, the reality is much more complex.
O , recently in the magazine Behavioral and Brain Sciencesargues that the concept of a society where everyone enjoys equal wealth, status and power is more fiction than reality.
“Relative equality in all aspects of life is a fiction,” write the study authors, who did an extensive analysis of field data and existing literature on small-scale societies.
Stibbard-Hawkes and Rueden will consider seven key areas of social life—from leadership and gender roles to material wealth and reproductive success—and found that even the most frequently cited “egalitarian” societies exhibit clear and persistent forms of inequality.
The investigation revealed that the leadership influence, social capital and access to material goods are unevenly distributed, even in groups historically portrayed as cooperative and fair.
The study notes, for example, that individuals most skilled at hunting or with greater physical strength tend to exert more influence on group decisions and have better marriage prospects.
In some societies, certain adult men received ritual privileges or food rights, while sick or disabled were sometimes left behind.
Even the social capital — the network of kinship and alliances that supports individuals in times of conflict or scarcity — is far from being shared equitably. Those with wider kinship networks or stronger reputations receive more support and accumulate benefits over time.
The researchers argue that leadership may not always be formalized through titles or coercive powerbut even so, it is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals who exercise greater authority in conflict mediation and community planning.
“Although leadership may be less formalized, coercive, or directly rewarded, leadership unequal influence on decision making collective exists even in the most egalitarian contexts,” the authors wrote.
They also emerge inequalities based on gender and age in these societies, the study concludes.
If, on the one hand, women in some communities enjoy significant autonomy, on the other, women structural differences at workin ritual authority and in exposure to violence generate predictable disparities.
Age brings its own hierarchyas older men tend to gain ritual power and control over marriages, increasing their influence.
A material wealth and property rightsoften considered absent in collector societies, also contribute to inequality.
Some groups have exclusive rights to landtrees or coastal areas, while others maintain less formalized but still relevant territorial boundaries. These systems influence who has access to resources and inheritance, further stratifying societies.
O reproductive success It is another area where inequalities arise. High-status or older men in certain societies may have multiple wives, resulting in significant differences in the number of descendants. In other cases, marriage arrangements imposed by elders restrict the autonomy of younger members, shaping their future.
The study highlights that these patterns of inequality do not result from a lack of moral commitment to justice, but rather from social mechanisms — such as sharing by obligation, mobility and collective resistance to domination — which prevent the accumulation of unchecked power by an individual.
These processes help maintain a certain balancebut they do not eliminate disparities completely.
Stibbard-Hawkes and von Rueden make a point of clarifying that their conclusions[…] do not suggest that inequality is natural or acceptable. On the contrary, they simply argue that total equality, as imagined in popular discourses, never existed in the history of humanity.
Your work highlights the difficulty in creating societies free of differences of power, wealth and status, and highlights the ongoing effort needed to build more equitable systems.
The authors hope that their research will lead scholars, policymakers, and the public to rethink the way equality is defined and sought.
When focusing less in equality of results and more in processes that limit domination and safeguard autonomy, the study authors argue, societies will be able to better understand the complexities of human social life — both past and present.
