| Abstract: |
It is argued that sedentism occurs in the context of patchy resource distribution and population packing, requires food storage as well as increased resource processing, and alters mechanisms that cope with local resource failure, the nature of which depend on the spatial parameters of resource fluctuations. Spatially heterogeneous fluctations promote risk-sharing social behavior between groups
homogeneous fluctations promote restricted sharing networks and the maximization of resource stores. Where groups are sedentary, resources are localized, relative population density is high, and resource fluctuations are heterogeneous
individuals emerge who control social access to other groups. The origin of social inequality is seen to lie not in the production of surplus but in situations where sedentary group members pursue contradictory goals, resulting from differential individual adaptations to resource fluctuations.
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