A PNAS study by Mattia Fochesato of Bocconi and Samuel Bowles introduces BRIDGE, a method for estimating inequality in ancient societies while making uncertainty explicit. Using data from 431 sites over 12,000 years, the study shows that archaeological measures of wealth are often fragmentary and biased. Rather than offering a single Gini value, BRIDGE provides a range of plausible estimates, revealing that traditional methods often underestimate uncertainty and that historical data must be interpreted with greater caution.

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