Juliet Dunlop: Upward mobility is a class act for women CLASSis ancient history. Fact. Not in the sense that it's died out and gone away, it's just much older than we thought - a staggering 7,000 years old to be precise. How do we know this? Well, archaeologists have been poring over the graves of early Neolithic farmers and they've worked out that the gap between rich and poor - based on what you were buried with - was around in 5000 BC. Now this was a time long before the pyramids and the bling of the Bronze Age - the world was a much smaller, less sophisticated place - yet all the social markers were firmly in place. Some early European settlers were found clutching top of the range tools meaning they farmed the best land and lived the longest. While they grew fat and strong their less well equipped neighbours ploughed an altogether less productive furrow and more often than not, they were stunted and starving. I don't know about you, but it reminds me of that classic 60s sketch on class from The Frost Report. It used comedy legends John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and the diminutive Ronnie Corbett in a brilliant visual gag that twinned height with social position. Just substitute the bowler hat, trilby and flat cap with the Stone Age equivalents. But perhaps the most startlingly modern part is that their children inherited their wealth. Professor Alex Bentley of Bristol University explains: "It seems the Neolithic era introduced heritable property - and livestock - into Europe and that wealth inequality got under way when this happened. After that, of course, there was no looking back: through the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Industrial era wealth inequality increased but the "seeds" of inequality were sown way back in the Neolithic." Fast forward to the present and we're still grappling with the idea of society's "haves" and "have-nots." You could argue that we're still tackling the "giant evils" of "want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness" outlined in the Beveridge Report. Britain was facing its darkest hour when the report was published in 1942 and over the years there have been many promises to tackle these problems. All the parties have spoken about eradicating child poverty, tackling poor housing and health and the thorniest of the lot, social mobility. The Deputy Prime Minister has promised to redouble the government's efforts to crack that particular nut. According to Nick Clegg class still counts - and hold the front page - "We are a long distance from being a classless society." His message is reinforced by new research carried out by the government's social mobility adviser, Alan Milburn, who says the professions are letting down young people from poorer backgrounds and need to widen their intake. The ex-Labour minister highlights the closed-shop mentality of law, medicine and politics and says social mobility has stagnated. It seems that when it comes to moving up the ladder we haven't had it so good since the 1950s. Across the professions as a whole, the glass ceiling might have been scratched, but it's certainly not been broken. At the top especially, the professions remain dominated by the social elite. Mr Milburn could have been describing the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, who along with Mr Clegg, grew up with all the advantages his report rails against. It all chimes with an attack by outspoken Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries, who recently accused David Cameron and George Osborne of being "arrogant posh boys." It's a tag that refuses to go way, and was trotted out again during the recent pasty tax debacle. The move was branded elitist and swiftly dropped like a hot potato (and meat product) in a Treasury U-turn this week. Who needs to have a debate on changing social attitudes and improving life chances when the price of a pasty is at stake? There is, however, one small heartening detail to take from the research on Neolithic farmers is the role of Stone Age woman. The experts have found that she was on the move, or the make, depending on your point of view. Apparently it was quite normal for the women to up sticks and leave to improve their prospects. Usually they'd marry-up and move in with the in-laws. Yes, we could almost be talking about Kate Middleton.