NEO EVOLUTIONISM

Nishanth Krishnan K.N.

INTRODUCTION

Social theory that explain the evolution of societies

Emerged in 1930’s

Eminent scholars like Julian steward, Leslie A. White and V. Gordon Childe

Incorporate with Sociology and Anthropology in the 1960’s

EVOLUTIONIST SCHOOL: A REVIEW

Evolution: Process by which different forms developed or

produced orderly in a system, that brings simple to more complex, homogeneity to heterogeneity, uncertainty to certainty.

Cultural evolution: Defined as different successive forms in social

culture of mankind as a whole are developed in to constitute the growth of culture over different periods of time or in continuity.

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CLASSICAL EVOLUTIONIST SCHOOL

Unilinear evolutionism: stage after stage simple to complex

Value judgment and assumptions for interpreting data.

E.B.Tylor : 3 Stages: Savagery –Barbarism-Civilization

L.H. Morgan : savagery, barbarism, and civilization , of which the first 2 were divided in to sub periods denoted the lower, middle , and upper.

The parabolic curve

Classical evolutionary theory- unilinear evolutionary schemeNeo evolutionary theory- Parabolic scheme

3rd stage1. Common ownership2. Nudism3. Sex- freedom

2nd stage 1. Individual

ownership 2. Body covered

cloth 3. Monogamy

1st stage4. Common ownership2. Shortage of cloth3. Sexual promiscuity

Vere Gordon ChildeBorn-14 April 1892 Sydney, New South Wales, AustraliaDied 19 October 1957 (aged 65)

Trained archaeologist and philologist who specialized in the study of European prehistory

Childe accepted the socio-economic theory of Marxism and was an early proponent of Marxist archaeology.

Childe worked for most of his life as an academic in the United Kingdom, initially at the University of Edinburgh, and later at the Institute of Archaeology, London.

Major works

The Dawn of European Civilization, New York, 1925

New Light on the Most Ancient East , New York, 1935

What Happened in History , New York, 1946

Social Evolution , New York, 1951

Man Makes Himself , New York, 1951

What Happened in History , New York, 1953

Social Evolution , New York, 1951

Evolution of Culture – Three major events;

1. Invention of food production

2. Urbanization

3. Industrialization

Scheme of Archaeological periods and Cultural development

Archaeological period Cultural development1. Palaeolithic Savagery2. Neolithic Barbarism3. Copper age Higher Barbarism4. Early Bronze age Civilization

Much influenced by Tylor and Morgan

“Universal evolutionist” by Julian Steward

Characteristics of cultural sequenceSavagery – Hunting and gatheringBarbarism – Plant and animal domesticationCivilization – Development of writing and mathematics

Weaknesses

-Lack of interest in the civilizational sequence outside of the middle east and Europe

-Much relied on archaeological data

- could not take in to consideration the universal existing institutions of matriarchy, sexual promiscuity, etc.

Julian Haynes StewardBorn January 31, 1902 Washington D.C. Died February 6, 1972 Urbana, Illinois

Education Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley (1925)

One of the students of A.L. Kroeber

Fieldwork: Eastern Mono and Pailute of owens Valley

Major works

Theory of cultural change, 1955

The economic and social basis of primitive bands, 1928

Cultural Causality and Law: A Trial Formulation of the -

Development of Early Civilizations, 1949

Area Research: Theory and Practice, 1950

Levels of Sociocultural Integration,1951

Evolution and Process, 1953

Multilinear evolution

All cultures of the world have not passed through the same developmental stage were different in different areas or sub areas.

The cultural evolution is studied by the limited parallels and comparing them.

The methodology is based on assumption that significant regularities or parallels occur in culture change, and it is concerned with determination of laws

Cultural ecology

-1973 in the theory of cultural changeThree fundamental procedures

-Interrelationship between technology and environment must be analyzed

- the behavioral patterns involved in exploitation of a particular area by means of a particular technology must be analyzed

- to ascertain the extent, to which the behavior pattern entailed in exploiting the environment, affects other aspects of culture

Leslie Alvin White

Born 19 January 1900, Salida, Colorado Died31 March 1975, Lone Pine, California

American Anthropologist

President of the American Anthropological Association (1964)

His theory, published in 1959 in The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome

Much influenced by Marx, E.B. Tylor, L.H. Morgan, Spencer, Engals, and Durkheim

White opposed Boas and his followers

Major books:

The evolution of culture, 1959

The science of culture, 1949

Processes related to socio cultural system- three parts

Techno economic Social Ideological

- Culture depends upon man for its existence

1. Technology is an attempt to solve the problems of survival.

2. This attempt ultimately means capturing enough energy and diverting it for human needs.

3. Societies that capture more energy and use it more efficiently have an advantage over other societies.

4. Therefore, these different societies are more advanced in an evolutionary sense.

Law of cultural development

E * T = CE= Energy, T= Technology, C= Cultural development

Social organization

N * P * R = SN= nutrition, P= protection, R= reproduction, S= Social organization

Property

T * L = PT= things, L= Labour P= property

CONCLUSION

Neoevolutionism discards many ideas of classical social evolutionism such as social progress.

Neoevolutionism discards the determinism argumentand introduces probability, arguing that accidents and free will have much impact on the process of social evolution.

It also supports the counterfactual history - asking 'what if' and considering different possible paths that social evolution may (or might have) taken, and thus allows for the fact that various cultures may develop in different ways, some skipping entire stages others have passed through.

19th century evolutionism explained how culture develops by giving general principles of its evolutionaryprocess, it was dismissed by Historical Particularism as unscientific in the early 20th century.

It was the neoevolutionary thinkers who brought back evolutionary thought and developed it to be acceptable to contemporary anthropology.

Neoevolutionism stresses the importance ofempirical evidence. While 19th century evolutionism used value judgment and assumptions for interpreting data.

Neoevolutionism relied on measurable information for analyzing the process of cultural evolution.

REFERENCE

1. Upadhyay V.S, Gaya Pandey HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL THOUGHT, CONCEPT PUBLISHING

COMPONY, New Delhi

2. R. Jon McGeeRichard L . Warms ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY:

AN INTRODUCTORY HISTORY The McGraw-Hill Companies,

New York

3. INTERNET

THANKS