Ancient Maya houses show wealth inequality is tied to despotic governance

Every society has some degree of wealth inequality—over history, across continents, there always seem to be some people who have more than others. But the amount of inequality differs—in some civilizations, a few powerful people have nearly all the wealth, whereas in others, it's more spread out. In a new study in PLOS ONE, archaeologists examined the remains of houses in ancient Maya cities and compared them with other Mesoamerican societies; they found that the societies with the most wealth inequality were also the ones that had governments that concentrated power with a smaller number of people.