This paper explores aspects of inequality in Mesopotamia during the 4th millennium BC. This millennium was the era of early cities, which were accompanied by expanded hierarchies of power, new social identities, and innovative modes of working and labour management. Selected types of material culture–statues, amulets, eye idols, clay cone mosaics and bevelled-rim bowls– are explored. Their frequency, quality, raw materials, production and use contexts have a range of implications with rega...

Thematic issue: THE ORIGIN OF INEQUALITY Edited by Andrea Cardarelli, Alberto Cazzella and Marcella Frangipane Indice / Contents NOTE INTRODUTTIVE / FOREWORD Andrea Cardarelli, Alberto Cazzella, Marcella Frangipane INCREASING INEQUALITIES – FROM THE EDEN TO THE PRESENT Mario Liverani A NEW WORLD OF WORK: ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES IN 4TH MILLENNIUM BC MESOPOTAMIA Augusta McMahon MATERIAL AND SOCIAL WORLDS IN NEOLITHIC AND EARLY CHALCOLITHIC FARS, IRAN Susan Pollock THE APPEARANCE OF SOCIAL INEQ...

In the 4th millennium BC, Mesopotamia witnessed the world’s first urban settlements and associated economic and political complexities. However, the burial practices of this period are poorly known, leaving a gap in our reconstruction of the social implications of this important transition. The funerary traditions of the preceding and succeeding 5th and 3rd millennium BC in Mesopotamia are well-known, but there does not appear to be a continuum of practice across the intervening millennium...

Sommario REUSE OF PREHISTORIC LITHIC IMPLEMENTS IN HISTORICAL TIMES: CASE STUDIES FROM THE ALBAN HILLS Flavio Altamura COOKING, WORKING AND BURYING IN ANCIENT NEOLITHIC: THE OVENS OF PORTONOVO (MARCHE, ITALY) Cecilia Conati Barbaro – ESTIMATING FIRING TEMPERATURES OF PYROTECHNOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN THE NEOLITHIC SITE OF PORTONOVO Italo M. Muntoni, Grazia Ruggiero – AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE HUMAN REMAINS FROM THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATION OF PORTONOVO-FOSSO FONTANACCIA Paola Catalano,...