What is social stratification?
Social stratification is the division of society into unequal layers of status, wealth, and power. It emerged gradually after the Neolithic Revolution as agricultural surpluses allowed some families to accumulate more than others, creating hereditary inequalities that became the foundation of all complex civilizations.
Social stratification — the hierarchical arrangement of individuals and groups into unequal layers of privilege, wealth, and power — is one of the defining features of complex societies. For most of human history, people lived in relatively egalitarian bands that actively resisted the concentration of power. The emergence of persistent, hereditary inequality was a radical departure from this deep human pattern.
The transition accelerated with agriculture and settlement. Food surpluses could be accumulated and controlled. Land became a fixed, inheritable resource. Some families built advantages over generations through larger herds, more productive fields, or strategic marriages. Religious leaders who claimed special access to the divine leveraged spiritual authority into political and economic power.
By the time the first city-states emerged in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE, stratification was firmly established. Kings and priests occupied the top of the hierarchy, followed by merchants and skilled artisans, then farmers and laborers, and at the bottom, slaves. This basic template — with local variations — became the default structure for virtually every complex society that followed.
Archaeologists trace stratification through burial evidence. In egalitarian communities, graves contain similar goods. In stratified societies, some burials are lavish — the Royal Tombs of Ur contain gold, lapis lazuli, and sacrificed attendants — while others contain nothing. This material evidence reveals the moment when human societies crossed the threshold from relative equality to structured inequality.