Social Evolutionism - Anthropology - The University Of Alabama

In the early years of anthropology, the prevailing view of anthropologists and other scholars was that culture generally develops (or evolves) in a uniform and progressive manner. The Evolutionists, building upon the success of  Darwin’s theory of evolution, but not drawing much inspiration from his central contribution of the concept of natural selection, sought to track the development of culture through time.  Just as species were thought to evolve into increasing complex forms, so too were cultures thought to progress from  simple to complex states. Initially it was thought by many scholars that most societies pass through the same or similar series of stages to arrive, ultimately, at a common end. Change was thought to originate principally from within the culture, so development was thought to be internally determined.

The evolutionary progression of societies had been accepted by some since the Enlightenment. Both French and Scottish social and moral philosophers were using evolutionary schemes during the 18th century. Among these was Montesquieu, who proposed an evolutionary scheme consisting of three stages: hunting or savagery, herding or barbarism, and civilization. This tripartite division became very popular among the 19th century social theorists, with figures such as Tylor and Morgan  adopting one or another version of this scheme (Seymour-Smith 1986:105).

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Europeans had successfully explored, conquered and colonized many heretofore unknown (to them) parts of the globe. This global movement led to novel products and peoples that lived quite different lifestyles than the Europeans proved politically and scientifically problematic. The discipline of anthropology, beginning with these early social theories arose largely in response to this encounter between the disparate cultures of quite different societies (Winthrop 1991:109). Cultural evolution – anthropology’s first systematic ethnological theory – was intended to help explain this variation among the peoples of the world.

The notion of dividing the ethnological record into evolutionary stages ranging from primitive to civilized was fundamental to the new ideas of the nineteenth century social evolutionists. Drawing upon Enlightenment thought, Darwin’s work, and new cross-cultural, historical, and archaeological evidence, a whole generation of social evolutionary theorists emerged such as Tylor and Morgan. These theorists developed rival schemes of overall social and cultural progress, as well as the origins of different institutions such as religion, marriage, and the family.

Edward B. Tylor disagreed with the contention of some early-nineteenth-century French and English writers, led by Comte Joseph de Maistre, that groups such as the American Indians and other indigenous peoples were examples of cultural degeneration. He believed that peoples in different locations were equally capable of developing and progressing through the stages. Primitive groups had “reached their position by learning and not by unlearning” (Tylor 2006:36). Tylor maintained that culture evolved from the simple to the complex, and that all societies passed through the three basic stages of development suggested by Montesquieu: from savagery through barbarism to civilization. “Progress,” therefore, was possible for all.

To account for cultural variation, Tylor and other early evolutionists postulated that different contemporary societies were at different stages of evolution. According to this view, the “simpler” peoples of the day had not yet reached “higher” stages. Thus, simpler contemporary societies were thought to resemble ancient societies.  In more advanced societies one could see proof of cultural evolution through the presence of what Tylor called survivals – traces of earlier customs that survive in present-day cultures. The making of pottery is an example of a survival in the sense used by Tylor. Earlier peoples made their cooking pots out of clay; today we generally make them out of metal because it is more durable, but we still prefer dishes made of clay.

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 in the mental framework of 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.

Another nineteenth-century proponent of uniform and progressive cultural evolution was Lewis Henry Morgan. A lawyer in upstate New York, Morgan became interested in the local Iroquois Indians and defended their reservation in a land-grant case. In gratitude, the Iroquois adopted Morgan, who regarded them as “noble savages.”  In his best-known work, Ancient Society, Morgan divided the evolution of human culture into the same three basic stages Tylor had suggested (savagery, barbarism, and civilization). But he also subdivided savagery and barbarism into upper, middle, and lower segments (Morgan 1877: 5-6), providing contemporary examples of each of these three stages. Each stage was distinguished by a technological development and had a correlate in patterns of subsistence, marriage, family, and political organization. In Ancient Society, Morgan commented, “As it is undeniable that portions of the human family have existed in a state of savagery, other portions in a state of barbarism, and still others in a state of civilization, it seems equally so that these three distinct conditions are connected with each other in a natural as well as necessary sequence of progress”(Morgan 1877:3). Morgan distinguished these stages of development in terms of technological achievement, and thus each had its identifying benchmarks. Middle savagery was marked by the acquisition of a fish diet and the discovery of fire; upper savagery by the bow and arrow; lower barbarism by pottery; middle barbarism by animal domestication and irrigated agriculture; upper barbarism by the manufacture of iron; and civilization by the phonetic alphabet (Morgan 1877: chapter 1). For Morgan, the cultural features distinguishing these various stages arose from a “few primary germs of thought”- germs that had emerged while humans were still savages and that later developed into the “principle institutions of mankind.”

Morgan postulated that the stages of technological development were associated with a sequence of different cultural patterns. For example, he speculated that the family evolved through six stages. Human society began as a “horde living in promiscuity,” with no sexual prohibitions and no real family structure. In the next stage a group of brothers was married to a group of sisters and brother-sister mating was permitted. In the third stage, group marriage was practiced, but brothers and sisters were not allowed to mate. The fourth stage, which supposedly evolved during barbarism, was characterized by a loosely paired male and female who lived with other people. In the next stage husband-dominant families arose in which the husband could have more than one wife simultaneously. Finally, the stage of civilization was distinguished by the monogamous family, with just one wife and one husband who were relatively equal in status. Morgan believed that family units became progressively smaller and more self-contained as human society developed. His postulated sequence for the evolution of the family, however, 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 works sought similar ends, the evolutionary theorists each had very different ideas about and foci for their studies. Differing from Morgan, for example, Sir James Frazer focused on the evolution of religion and 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 Maine, McLellan, and Bachofen.

It is important to note that most of the early evolutionary schemes were unilineal. Unilineal evolution refers to the idea that there is a set sequence of stages that all groups will pass through at some point, although the pace of progress through these stages will vary greatly. Groups, both past and present, that are at the same level or stage of development were considered nearly identical. Thus, a contemporary “primitive” group could be taken as a representative of an earlier stage in the development of more advanced types.

The evolutionist program can be summed up in this segment of Tylor’s Primitive Culture which notes: “The condition of culture among the various societies of mankind…is a subject apt for the study of laws of human thought and action. On the one hand, the uniformity which so largely pervades civilization may be ascribed, in great measure, to the uniform action of uniform causes; while on the other hand its various grades may be regarded as stages of development or evolution, each the outcome of previous history, and about to do its proper part in shaping the history of the future (Tylor 1871:1:1).”