What does the foundation of a prehistoric house tell us about the wealth of its owner? More than you might think. It is from this simple question that the GINI project - Global Dynamics of Inequality - one of the most ambitious scientific endeavors ever undertaken to reconstruct the economic dynamics of the distant past, takes its cue. The result has just been published in a special issue of the prestigious journal PNAS, and represents a breakthrough for archaeology, economic history and the social sciences in general.

But the GINI project is not limited to historical reconstruction. Indeed, one of the goals is to understand whether and how these same metrics-the distribution of housing size, in particular-are still an effective indicator of economic inequality today. The researchers compared archaeological data with large contemporary housing databases and associated economic indicators. “This allows us to come full circle, comparing archaeology with the present,” points out Mattia Fochesato, co-author of three articles in the special issue.

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