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Nineteen Century Social Evolutionism: Anthropological Theories
Nineteen Century Social Evolutionism: Anthropological Theories
Points of Principal
Criticisms Relevant Web Sites
Reaction Concepts
Leading
Methodologies Comments
Figures
Basic Premises
In the early years of anthropology, the prevailing view was that culture
generally develops (or evolves) in a uniform and progressive manner. It
was thought that most societies pass through the same series of stages, to
arrive ultimately at a common end. The sources of culture change were
generally assumed to be embedded within the culture from the beginning,
and therefore the ultimate course of development was thought to be
internally determined.
Tylor believed that there was a kind of psychic unity among all peoples that
explained parallel evolutionary sequences in different cultural traditions. In
other words, because of the basic similarities common to all peoples,
different societies often find the same solutions to the same problems
independently. But Tylor also noted that cultural traits may spread from
one society to another by simple diffusion - the borrowing by one culture of
a trait belonging to another as the result of contact between the two.
Morgan believed that family units became progressively smaller and more
self-contained as human society developed. However, his postulated
sequence for the evolution of the family is not supported by the enormous
amount of ethnographic data that has been collected since his time. For
example, no recent society that Morgan would call savage indulges in
group marriage or allows brother-sister mating.
Although their work reached toward the same end, the evolutionary
theorists each had very different ideas and foci for their studies. Differing
from Morgan, Tylor and Frazer focusing on the evolution of religion, viewed
the progress of society or culture from the viewpoint of the evolution of
psychological or mental systems. Among the other evolutionary theorists
who put forth schemes of development of society, including different
religious, kinship, and legal institution were Frazer, Maine, McLellan, and
Bachofen.
Points of Reaction
Reactions to evolutionism:
Karl Marx was struck by the parallels between Morgan’s evolutionism and
his own theory of history. Marx and his co-worker, Friedrich Engels,
devised a theory in which the institutions of monogamy, private property,
and the state were assumed to be chiefly responsible for the exploitation of
the working classes in modern industrialized societies. Marx and Engels
extended Morgan’s evolutionary scheme to include a future stage of
cultural evolution in which monogamy, private property, and the state
would cease to exist and the “communism” of primitive society would once
more come into being.
Leading Figures
Key Works
Frazer, James George. 1890 [1959]. The New Golden Bough. 1 vol,
abr.
Theodor H. Gaster, ed. New York: Criterion.
Lubbock, John. 1872. Prehistoric Times: As Illustrated by Ancient
Remains and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages. New
York: Appleton.
Maine, Henry. 1861. Ancient Law.
McLellan, John. 1865. Primitive Marriage.
Morgan, Lewis Henry. 1876. Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of
the Human Family.
----------. 1877. Ancient Society or Researches in the Lines of Human
Progress rom Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization. Chicago:
Charles H. Kerr.
Tylor, Edward B. 1871 [1958]. Primitive Culture. 2 vols. New York:
Harper Torchbook.
Principal Concepts
Methodologies
The Comparative Method
"… the archaeologist is free to follow the methods which have been so
successfully pursued in geology - the rude bone and stone implements of
bygone ages being to the one what the remains of extinct animals are to
the other. The analogy may be pursued even further than this. Many
mammalia which are extinct in Europe have representatives still living in
other countries. Our fossil pachyderms, for instance, would be almost
unintelligible but for the species which still inhabit some parts of Asia and
Africa; the secondary marsupials are illustrated by their existing
representatives in Australia and South America; and in the same manner, if
we wish clearly to understand the antiquities of Europe, we must compare
them with the rude implements and weapons still, or until lately, used by
the savage races in other parts of the world. In fact, Van Diemaner and
South American are to the antiquary what the opossum and the sloth are to
the geologist (1865:416).”
All theorists of the latter half of the nineteenth century proposed to fill the
gaps in the available knowledge of universal history largely by means of a
special and much-debated procedure known as the “comparative method.”
The basis for this method was the belief that sociocultural systems
observable in the present bear differential degrees of resemblance to
extinct cultures. The life of certain contemporary societies closely
resembles what life must have been like during the paleolithic; other
groups resemble typical neolithic culture; and others resemble the earliest
state-organized societies. Morgan’s view of this prolongation of the past
into the present is characteristic:
Accomplishments
Criticisms
Morgan believed that family units became progressively smaller and more
self-contained as human society developed. However, his postulated
sequence for the evolution of the family is not supported by the enormous
amount of ethnographic data that has been collected since his time. For
example, no recent society that Morgan would call savage indulges in
group marriage or allows brother-sister mating.
Comments
Harris called Morgan and Tylor racists (1968:137,140), but they were the
great thinkers of their time. I learned Tylor’s definition of culture as an
undergraduate and all cultural anthropology classes discuss Morgan’s
stages of development. These were the guys who got the ball rolling in
social anthropology. They came up with the theories which opposed the
traditional views. Their theories caused a new wave of thinking by people
who agreed and changed their views and also by people who disagreed
and came up with new theories to replace those of the evolutionists. The
work of the nineteenth century social evolutionists represents an important
step toward the field of anthropology today.
Sources
E.B. Tylor
E.B. Tylor
E.B. Tylor: A Founding Figure
E.B. Tylor entry in Encyclopedia Britannica