ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the grand narrative of human economic change that we present in the book, defines fundamental terms and describes important patterns in past human economies. We draw on the ‘heterodox’ economic ideas of Thomas Piketty, Mariana Mazzucato and David Graeber, whose work has gained prominence in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008. We argue that these new theories are needed because archaeology’s engagement with economics has grown stale. In particular, the onset of neoclassical economics and neoliberal ideology has facilitated the creep of elite determinism and the cult of the entrepreneur into archaeological theories. By addressing these myths, we make room for a new narrative of long-term economic change, one that draws on the ever-growing corpus of archaeological data emerging across the globe to investigate the dynamics of economic growth in the past, investigate the origins of measurement, money, trade and merchants, and explain the emergence of billionaires and the oligarchies they create.
