Module 5: Did social inequality contribute to long-term stability in ancient societies?
Overview
We will use archaeological data to investigate the origins of social inequality, global patterns of variation in inequality, key factors that influence wealth disparity in ancient cultures, and whether social inequality comes with long-term stability.
Objectives
- Understand how archaeologists measure inequality using material culture
- Recognise different subsistence and political systems in the archaeological record
- Import data into R, clean it with string manipulation, wrangle it with dplyr functions, and visualise using boxplots in an R Markdown document
- Analyse and report on a dataset of Neolithic archaeological sites around the world
Preparation
Go to Perusall to access the readings and video to prepare for class (FAQ on Perusall)
Lectures
Lecture slides will be available here after class.
- Thurs: archaeological context for understanding the lab: ARCHY_208_AU22_Lecture_9.pptx Download ARCHY_208_AU22_Lecture_9.pptx
- Tues: demonstration of R programming skills so you can do the lab: ARCHY_208_AU22_Lecture_10.pptx Download ARCHY_208_AU22_Lecture_10.pptx
- Lab 5 feedback slides here Download here
Discussions
Discuss this module and ask questions on Discord (contact us for an invite). When asking for help with code, please share a screenshot (FAQ: how to take a screenshot)
Assignments
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Assignments for this module are:
- Before Thursday's class complete 5.1 and 5.2 on Perusall
- Before Tuesday's class complete 5.3 and 5.4 on Perusall
- Poll Everywhere responses during scheduled class time
- Complete the Module 5 Lab report, you can work on this online in RStudio on JupyterHub. We will demonstrate how to do the lab in class on Tuesday, then you will submit your completed lab before the following Tuesday's class. You have one week to complete the lab after seeing the demonstration in class.