Many say that life is unfair. Some are born rich, and others are born in a poor family. The inequality in life or wealth gap may have even happened even in prehistoric times.
That is what archaeologists concluded after their research in Poland, which reveals the richest humans from the Neolithic times were also buried with the most unusual artifacts.
Figure 3. Burial 54 at Osłonki: left) arrangement of the skeleton with copper plaques visible near the hand; right) copper plaques and beads, shell beads and other ornaments (after Grygiel 2008: fig. 813).
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The Wealth Gap in Prehistoric Europe
Like so many discoveries, the archaeologists were not searching for the connection of artifacts to the corpse's wealth when it was still alive. They were supposed to know how the Neolithic farmers, buried in the 6,600-year-old graveyards in the town of Oslonki, used to grow and eat during their time.
But somehow, the richest diets before are aligned with the most expensive buried artifacts. The researchers found that artifacts humans buried with were not just simple funerary donations by their hopeful family members, but it was the direct translation of their material wealth from life into death.
Archaeologist and anthropologist Chelsea Budd of the Umeå University in Sweden said that they had uncovered some of the earliest evidence of the emergence of social and economic inequality during the prehistoric times, a much earlier time than previously thought.
After examining the bones of 30 people buried, the team found that those skeletons containing more carbon-13 isotopes were often buried with fancier grave jewelry made from copper.
Carbon-13 isotopes accumulate in food sources at different amounts. Therefore, these isotopes are also subsequently incorporated into human tissue. However, they still tell little about Neolithic food.
These isotopes could suggest more dairy intake, but that is highly unlikely in the region where the skeletons were found. Or it could suggest that prehistoric people had access to animals and plants that were different in isotopes from the rest, which is seen in cattle bones in the region.
That could imply that those people and animals once had the privilege to have access to large fields and more lush pastures well lit by the sun, leading to more carbon-13 isotopes, while some lands did not have that.
The authors suggest that perhaps the first people in the community also had the exchange networks that brought the exotic copper goods in the area. They noted that it is a plausible scenario given the rich evidence for the importance of ascribed to a land or region's first settlers.
More so, prehistoric people might have also practiced passing down their lands from one generation to another, giving birth to the earliest forms of generational wealth.
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Copper Ornaments Found in Oslonki
The study published in Antiquity suggests that there is some dietary difference between those skeletons with copper jewelry and those who did not have any.
They discovered 50 strips of copper, 200 beads, five pendants ad a diadem. These ornaments were likely brought in from other places hundreds of kilometers away, another evidence that their previous owners were wealthy.
Sometime around 4,500 B.C., Oslonki and other nearby communities were abandoned, and during that time, copper ornament in northern Europe also stopped appearing for 1,000 years. That could mean that the town was once a part of the trade networks that involve these precious goods.
"That the system appears quite short-lived highlights that early attempts at developing hierarchical structures were not always successful in the long term," the authors noted.
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