Wider WorldNeolithic to Bronze Age · Central Plain, Henan, China
Burials from 6,000 years in China's Central Plain suggest inequality took root long before the first states
A study of more than 2,300 graves ties early unequal wealth and health to social networks, not to farming or population size.
In brief 3 key points
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- Researchers reanalysed published data from more than 2,300 burials dated 7000 to 1500 BC
- Unequal social positions could not be explained by farming intensity or population size
- The authors argue early states stabilised existing inequality rather than creating it
Lasting inequality in ancient China may have much deeper roots than the rise of the state, a new study suggests. Researchers analysed published data from more than 2,300 burials across 6,000 years of settlement in the Central Plain of China.
The study, by Dongdong Li and colleagues, was published in Science Advances on 14 October.
Graves, bones and diets
The team used isotopic, skeletal and animal-bone data from sites dated from 7000 to 1500 BC. Burial wealth, signs of skeletal health and the variety of diet served as measures of unequal standing between people.
From these, the researchers reconstructed the social networks that linked people in prehistoric China. The networks controlled a person's access to labour, resources and prized ritual objects.
Not farming, not population
Explanations of inequality often point to more intensive farming or the rise of the state. But the differences in social position found here could not be explained by the intensity of agriculture or the size of the population, the authors say.
Instead, unequal access to valued but scarce items first produced unequal networks. Later changes in subsistence, the rise of mobile wealth and growing violent conflict may have reshaped those networks, concentrating ritual, political, military and technological control.
“Stabilized rather than created these pre-existing disparities by institutionalizing control over resources, violence, and network-based access.”
The authors, on the role of early states, in Science Advances
Sources (1)
Peer-reviewed paper
- 6,000 years of burials in China's Central Plain show inequality before the first states (EurekAlert! (AAAS))
Paper: Li et al., How inequality became durable before states: Evidence from 6,000 years in the Central Plain of China, Science Advances (2026)
Edited by Guiseppe Weijermars
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