UMEÅ, SWEDEN—ZME Science reports that an international team of researchers suggests that wealth inequality among people living in the same community could have originated earlier than previously thought. Chelsea Budd of Umeå University and her colleagues analyzed the 6,600-year-old remains of 30 adults uncovered in a cemetery in Osłonki, Poland. Some of the burials included pendants, headbands, and copper beads, hinting that those individuals had lived with more wealth than those buried without such trinkets. The carbon isotopes in the human bones were then compared with the remains of cattle unearthed in the same region and dated to the same time period. The researchers found that the people who had been buried with trinkets had a distinctive ratio of carbon isotopes in their bones matching that of the local cattle. Meanwhile, the chemical composition of the bones of those people who had been buried without trinkets indicates that they did not feast on beef. The study also found that the cattle had grazed on grasses from sunny, open fields, perhaps because the people who ate them owned the land, the researchers concluded. To read about a Neolithic mass grave in southern Poland, go to "We Are Family."
