14 March 2023 - 14 March 2023
1:00PM - 2:00PM
D210 and online
Free to all attendees
Dr Dan Lawrence (Durham University) will circulate some material, and then lead a discussion on exploring household wealth and social complexity in the ancient Near East.
Household size has been suggested to indicate household wealth in the ancient Near East. If this is correct, we can measure the wealth of households based on their land use, which can then signal wealth inequality and social complexity. In early agricultural societies, there is often a correlation between increasing social complexity and greater wealth inequality. Therefore, disparity in household sizes can potentially indicate the development of social hierarchies and greater reliance on specialists in some of the world's earliest civilisations.
This seminar will be an open discussion led by Dr Lawrence based on material circulated by him beforehand.
Associate Professor
Dr Lawrence has been a lecturer in the department since October 2015. He is a Landscape Archaeologist with a focus on the Near East and Central Asia during the Holocene. His research focuses on climate change, cities and empires, data science in archaeology and heritage management in the Middle East.