Abstract
Inequalities may have always existed in human societies, at least at the level of relationships between individuals (e.g., Bender 1989; Olszewski 1991), relationships that are fluid—depending upon the interplay between individual character, age, and gender—since they are structured by social organization, culture, and economy, among other factors (including our biological heritage as terrestrial primates). Why and how do permanent elites grow from this seedbed? There are two broad classes of materialist answers: elite-as-managers and elite-as-thugs (cf. Gilman 1981). The first category includes Haas’s (1982) integrationist school and the second his conflict school.
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Ames, K.M. (1995). Chiefly Power and Household Production on the Northwest Coast. In: Price, T.D., Feinman, G.M. (eds) Foundations of Social Inequality. Fundamental Issues in Archaeology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1289-3_6
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