Inequality on the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America Measured by House-Floor Area and Storage Capacity

Authors

Kenneth M. Ames, Portland State UniversityFollow
Colin Grier, Washington State University

Published In

Antiquity

Document Type

Citation

Publication Date

8-1-2020

Abstract

Recent large-scale comparative archaeological studies of wealth differences have used Gini coefficients to assess inequality, employing house-floor area as a standardised, cross-cultural proxy for wealth. Two such studies have found that storage capacity produces higher Gini coefficients than floor area, suggesting that the latter measures household wealth, while the former reflects anticipated income. Here, the authors test these relationships using the floor area and storage capacity of excavated houses on the Lower Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. The results, which reflect those from previous studies, support the cross-cultural nature of the pattern, and show that storage capacity reflects food-surplus deployment strategies

Rights

© Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2020

Locate the Document

https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.128

DOI

10.15184/aqy.2020.128

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/34149

Citation Details

Ames, K., & Grier, C. (2020). Inequality on the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America measured by house-floor area and storage capacity. Antiquity, 94(376), 1042-1059. doi:10.15184/aqy.2020.128