Misplaced Pages

Ancient Society

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

Ancient Society is an 1877 book by the American anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan . Building on the data about kinship and social organization presented in his 1871 Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family , Morgan develops his theory of the three stages of human progress, i.e., from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization . Contemporary European social theorists such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were influenced by Morgan's work on social structure and material culture, as shown by Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884).

#135864

56-426: The dominant idea of Morgan's thought is that of progress . He conceived it as a career of social states arranged in a scale on which man has worked his way up from the bottom . Progress is historically true of the entire human family , but not uniformly. Different branches of the family have evidenced human advancement to different conditions. He thought the scale had universal application or substantially

112-468: A 15-page appreciation of Tylor's work by Andrew Lang , and a comprehensive bibliography of Tylor's publications compiled by Barbara Freire-Marreco . The word evolution is forever associated in the popular mind with Charles Darwin 's Theory of Evolution , which professes, among other things, that man as a species developed diachronically from some ancestor among the Primates who was also ancestor to

168-459: A deficit in knowledge of language development, which he does not think important. The little knowledge he shares can be found in Chapter 3. His brief scheme is in fact speculative only. Many Sino-Tibetan languages and Tai–Kadai languages , which may appear to non-speakers be "monosyllabic", use tone to distinguish morphemes, One syllable in different tones has different meanings. No language today

224-413: A fellow Quaker , ethnologist and archaeologist . Tylor's association with Christy greatly stimulated his awakening interest in anthropology, and helped broaden his inquiries to include prehistoric studies. Tylor's first publication was a result of his 1856 trip to Mexico with Christy. His notes on the beliefs and practices of the people he encountered were the basis of his work Anahuac: Or Mexico and

280-836: A lecturer, held the title of the first "Reader in Anthropology" from 1884 to 1895. In 1896 he was appointed the first Professor of Anthropology at Oxford University. He was also closely involved in the early history of the Pitt Rivers Museum , built adjacent to the University Museum. Tylor acted as anthropological consultant on the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary . The 1907, festschrift Anthropological Essays presented to Edward Burnett Tylor , formally presented to Tylor on his 75th birthday, contains essays by 20 anthropologists,

336-466: A newer has been evolved. "Survivals" can include outdated practices, such as the European practice of bloodletting , which lasted long after the medical theories on which it was based had faded from use and been replaced by more modern techniques. Critics argued that he identified the term but provided an insufficient reason as to why survivals continue. Tylor's meme -like concept of survivals explains

392-455: A number of times in the book. Morgan's standard of higher or lower is not clearly expressed. By higher he appears to mean whatever contributes better to control over the environment, victory over competitors, and spread of population. He does not mention Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution, but Darwin referred to Morgan's work in his own. The substitutions of ethna better than the previous follow several lines of progress . Morgan admits to

448-654: A passion for archaeology. The initial concepts of prehistory were his. Lubbock's works featured prominently in Tylor's lectures and in the Pitt Rivers Museum subsequently. A term ascribed to Tylor was his theory of "survivals". His definition of survivals is processes, customs, and opinions, and so forth, which have been carried on by force of habit into a new state of society different from that in which they had their original home, and they thus remain as proofs and examples of an older condition of culture out of which

504-407: A reformers' science." In 1881 Tylor published a work he called Anthropology , one of the first under that name. In the first chapter he uttered what would become a sort of constitutional statement for the new field, which he could not know and did not intend at the time: "History, so far as it reaches back, shows arts, sciences, and political institutions beginning in ruder states, and becoming in

560-436: A section. The samples are analyzed to determine their detrital remanent magnetism (DRM), that is, the polarity of Earth's magnetic field at the time a stratum was deposited. For sedimentary rocks this is possible because, as they fall through the water column, very fine-grained magnetic minerals (< 17  μm ) behave like tiny compasses , orienting themselves with Earth's magnetic field . Upon burial, that orientation

616-416: Is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers ( strata ) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks . Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostratigraphy (lithologic stratigraphy), biostratigraphy (biologic stratigraphy), and chronostratigraphy (stratigraphy by age). Catholic priest Nicholas Steno established

SECTION 10

#1732769392136

672-431: Is also commonly used to delineate the nature and extent of hydrocarbon -bearing reservoir rocks, seals, and traps of petroleum geology . Chronostratigraphy is the branch of stratigraphy that places an absolute age, rather than a relative age on rock strata . The branch is concerned with deriving geochronological data for rock units, both directly and inferentially, so that a sequence of time-relative events that created

728-702: Is considered more primitive than any other. Early stages of language are totally unknown and must have disappeared in remote prehistory. Gestural language still is considered the original form of symbolic communication. Morgan rejects the Ages of Stone, of Bronze, of Iron , the Three-Age System of pre-history, as being insufficient characterizations of progress. This theory had been explicated by J. J. A. Worsaae in his The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark , published in English in 1849. Worsaae had built his work on

784-450: Is described as the belief in spirits inhabiting and animating beings, or souls existing in things. To Tylor, the fact that modern religious practitioners continued to believe in spirits showed that these people were no more advanced than primitive societies. For him, this implied that modern religious practitioners do not understand the ways of the universe and how life truly works because they have excluded science from their understanding of

840-534: Is due to physical contrasts in rock type ( lithology ). This variation can occur vertically as layering (bedding), or laterally, and reflects changes in environments of deposition (known as facies change). These variations provide a lithostratigraphy or lithologic stratigraphy of the rock unit. Key concepts in stratigraphy involve understanding how certain geometric relationships between rock layers arise and what these geometries imply about their original depositional environment. The basic concept in stratigraphy, called

896-410: Is education, which he considers the cumulative knowledge and methodology that takes thousands of years to acquire. Tylor often likens primitive cultures to "children", and sees culture and the mind of humans as progressive. His work was a refutation of the theory of social degeneration , which was popular at the time. At the end of Primitive Culture, Tylor writes, "The science of culture is essentially

952-643: Is insufficient to form realistic abstractions. They overlooked cultural diffusion. They overlooked cultural innovation. None of the critics claim definitive proof that their criticisms are less subjective or interpretive than the models they criticise. Tylor's notion is best described in his most famous work, the two-volume Primitive Culture . The first volume, The Origins of Culture , deals with ethnography including social evolution, linguistics, and myth. The second volume, Religion in Primitive Culture , deals mainly with his interpretation of animism . On

1008-411: Is preserved. For volcanic rocks, magnetic minerals, which form in the melt, orient themselves with the ambient magnetic field, and are fixed in place upon crystallization of the lava. Oriented paleomagnetic core samples are collected in the field; mudstones , siltstones , and very fine-grained sandstones are the preferred lithologies because the magnetic grains are finer and more likely to orient with

1064-476: The Great Apes , as they are popularly termed, and yet this term was not a neologism of Darwin's. He took it from the cultural milieu, where it meant etymologically "unfolding" of something heterogeneous and complex from something simpler and more homogeneous. Herbert Spencer , a contemporary of Darwin, applied the term to the universe, including philosophy and what Tylor would later call culture. This view of

1120-567: The Neoevolutionist School, beginning with V. Gordon Childe . It brought the archaeology up-to-date and tended to omit the intervening society names, such as savagery; for example, Neolithic is both a tool tradition and a form of society. There are some other classifications. Theorists of each classification each have their own criticisms of the Classical/Neo Evolutionary lines, which despite them remains

1176-431: The law of superposition , states: in an undeformed stratigraphic sequence, the oldest strata occur at the base of the sequence. Chemostratigraphy studies the changes in the relative proportions of trace elements and isotopes within and between lithologic units. Carbon and oxygen isotope ratios vary with time, and researchers can use those to map subtle changes that occurred in the paleoenvironment. This has led to

SECTION 20

#1732769392136

1232-538: The lines of progress , he distinguishes ethnical periods , which each have a distinct culture and a particular mode of life and do not overlap in a region. He does admit to exceptions and a difficulty of determining precise borders between periods. Scientific archaeology was being developed at this time; Morgan did not have the techniques of stratigraphy or scientific dating available, but based his arguments on linguistic and historical speculation. Christian Jürgensen Thomsen and J. J. A. Worsaae are credited with

1288-564: The natural remanent magnetization (NRM) to reveal the DRM. Following statistical analysis, the results are used to generate a local magnetostratigraphic column that can then be compared against the Global Magnetic Polarity Time Scale. This technique is used to date sequences that generally lack fossils or interbedded igneous rocks. The continuous nature of the sampling means that it is also a powerful technique for

1344-407: The "human endeavor to secure happiness" was the driving force of civilization. Edward Burnett Tylor Sir Edward Burnett Tylor FRAI (2 October 1832 – 2 January 1917) was an English anthropologist , and professor of anthropology. Tylor's ideas typify 19th-century cultural evolutionism . In his works Primitive Culture (1871) and Anthropology (1881), he defined

1400-597: The Mexicans, Ancient and Modern (1861), published after his return to England. Tylor continued to study the customs and beliefs of tribal communities, both existing and prehistoric (based on archaeological finds). He published his second work, Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization , in 1865. Following this came his most influential work, Primitive Culture (1871). This

1456-527: The age of 16 without obtaining a degree. After leaving school, he prepared to help manage the family business. This plan was put aside when he developed tuberculosis at age 23. Following medical advice to spend time in warmer climes, Tylor left England in 1855, and travelled to the Americas . The experience proved to be an important and formative one, sparking his lifelong interest in studying unfamiliar cultures. During his travels, Tylor met Henry Christy ,

1512-615: The ambient field during deposition. If the ancient magnetic field were oriented similar to today's field ( North Magnetic Pole near the North Rotational Pole ), the strata would retain a normal polarity. If the data indicate that the North Magnetic Pole were near the South Rotational Pole , the strata would exhibit reversed polarity. Results of the individual samples are analyzed by removing

1568-418: The analogy an anthropological twist and introduces the comparative method coming into vogue in other disciplines. Lewis names units called ethna, by which he means inventions , discoveries and domestic institutions . The ethna are compared and judged higher or lower on the scale, pair by pair. Morgan's ethna appear to comprise at least some of Edward Burnett Tylor 's cultural objects. Morgan mentions Tylor

1624-443: The archaeology of John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury . Upadhyay and Pandey list its adherents as Robert Ranulph Marett , Henry James Sumner Maine , John Ferguson McLennan , and James George Frazer , as well as Tylor. Marett was the last man standing, dying in 1943. By the time of his death, Lubbock's archaeology had been updated. The American School, beginning with Lewis Henry Morgan , was likewise superseded, both being replaced by

1680-443: The characteristics of a culture that are linked to earlier stages of human culture. Studying survivals assists ethnographers in reconstructing earlier cultural characteristics and possibly reconstructing the evolution of culture. Tylor argued that people had used religion to explain things that occurred in the world. He saw that it was important for religions to have the ability to explain why and for what reason things occurred in

1736-406: The context of the scientific study of anthropology, based on the evolutionary theories of Charles Lyell . He believed that there was a functional basis for the development of society and religion, which he determined was universal. Tylor maintained that all societies passed through three basic stages of development: from savagery , through barbarism to civilization . Tylor is a founding figure of

Ancient Society - Misplaced Pages Continue

1792-414: The course of ages, more intelligent, more systematic, more perfectly arranged or organized, to answer their purposes." The view was a restatement of ideas first innovated in the early 1860s. The theorist perhaps most influential on Tylor was John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury , innovator of the terminology, "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic." A prominent banker and British liberal Parliamentarian, he was imbued with

1848-641: The culture from elsewhere. These two views are exactly parallel to the tree model and wave model of historical linguistics, which are instances of evolutionism and diffusionism, language features being instances of culture. Two other classifications were proposed in 1993 by Upadhyay and Pandey, Classical Evolutionary School and Neo Evolutionary School, the Classical to be divided into British, American, and German. The Classical British Evolutionary School, primarily at Oxford University, divided society into two evolutionary stages, savagery and civilization, based on

1904-412: The dominant view. Some criticisms are in brief as follows. There is really no universality; that is, the apparent parallels are accidental, on which the theorist has imposed a model that does not really fit. There is no uniform causality, but different causes might produce similar results. All cultural groups do not have the same stages of development. The theorists are arm-chair anthropologists; their data

1960-564: The evidence he was finding among Native American societies in North America, in which he had closely studied social structure as an indicator of stages of civilization. Since Morgan, the European three-age system has prevailed in anthropology and archeology , but the age characteristics have been enlarged to include many of the additional factors which Morgan described. Morgan's Savagery and Barbarism are roughly equivalent to Braidwood's food gathering and food production . Based on

2016-464: The first chapter of the work gives an outline of a new discipline, science of culture , later known as culturology. Unlike many of his predecessors and contemporaries, Tylor asserts that the human mind and its capabilities are the same globally, despite a particular society's stage in social evolution. This means that a hunter-gatherer society would possess the same amount of intelligence as an advanced industrial society. The difference, Tylor asserts,

2072-399: The first page of Primitive Culture , Tylor provides a definition which is one of his most widely recognised contributions to anthropology and the study of religion: Culture or Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. Also,

2128-471: The first phase in the development of religions. Tylor was born in 1832, in Camberwell , London , and was the son of Joseph Tylor and Harriet Skipper, part of a family of wealthy Quakers who owned a London brass factory. His elder brother, Alfred Tylor , became a geologist. He was educated at Grove House School , Tottenham , but due to his Quaker faith and the death of his parents he left school at

2184-635: The foundation of evidence-based chronology by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen , whose Guideline to Scandinavian Antiquity ( Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed ) (1836), was not published in English until 1848. The two works were highly influential to researchers in Great Britain and North America. Morgan believed the prehistoric stages as defined by the Danish were difficult to distinguish, as they overlapped and refer only to material types of implements or tools. In addition, Morgan thought they did not fit

2240-480: The foundation of scientific archaeology, as they worked to have controlled excavations in which artifacts could be evaluated by which were found together: the beginning of stratigraphy. This supposedly evidence-based system was the start of chronological dating in archeology. John Wesley Powell credited Ancient Society as "the most noteworthy attempt hitherto made to distinguish and define culture-stages". Powell theorized that savages advanced into civilization with

2296-512: The gap may be due to removal by erosion, in which case it may be called a stratigraphic vacuity. It is called a hiatus because deposition was on hold for a period of time. A physical gap may represent both a period of non-deposition and a period of erosion. A geologic fault may cause the appearance of a hiatus. Magnetostratigraphy is a chronostratigraphic technique used to date sedimentary and volcanic sequences. The method works by collecting oriented samples at measured intervals throughout

Ancient Society - Misplaced Pages Continue

2352-434: The help of racial and cultural mixing. Therefore, Powell reasoned, civilized people could help savages by mixing blood, rather than spilling blood. Powell also contended, that "human evolution has none of the characteristics of animal evolution". Powell opposed the survival of the fittest theory because in his mind, humans did not advance their living conditions to succeed in the struggle for existence. Instead, he mused that

2408-437: The rock layers. Strata from widespread locations containing the same fossil fauna and flora are said to be correlatable in time. Biologic stratigraphy was based on William Smith's principle of faunal succession , which predated, and was one of the first and most powerful lines of evidence for, biological evolution . It provides strong evidence for the formation ( speciation ) and extinction of species . The geologic time scale

2464-484: The rocks formation can be derived. The ultimate aim of chronostratigraphy is to place dates on the sequence of deposition of all rocks within a geological region, and then to every region, and by extension to provide an entire geologic record of the Earth. A gap or missing strata in the geological record of an area is called a stratigraphic hiatus. This may be the result of a halt in the deposition of sediment. Alternatively,

2520-409: The same in kind , with deviations from uniformity ... produced by special causes . Morgan hopes therefore to discern the principal stages of human development . Morgan arrived at the idea of a society's progress in part through analogy to individual development. It is an ascent to human supremacy on the earth . The prime analogate is an individual working his way up in society; that is, Morgan, who

2576-442: The science of social anthropology, and his scholarly works helped to build the discipline of anthropology in the nineteenth century. He believed that "research into the history and prehistory of man [...] could be used as a basis for the reform of British society ." Tylor reintroduced the term animism (faith in the individual soul or anima of all things and natural manifestations) into common use. He regarded animism as

2632-405: The significance of strata or rock layering and the importance of fossil markers for correlating strata; he created the first geologic map of England. Other influential applications of stratigraphy in the early 19th century were by Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart , who studied the geology of the region around Paris. Variation in rock units, most obviously displayed as visible layering,

2688-406: The specialized field of isotopic stratigraphy. Cyclostratigraphy documents the often cyclic changes in the relative proportions of minerals (particularly carbonates ), grain size, thickness of sediment layers ( varves ) and fossil diversity with time, related to seasonal or longer term changes in palaeoclimates . Biostratigraphy or paleontologic stratigraphy is based on fossil evidence in

2744-429: The theoretical basis for stratigraphy when he introduced the law of superposition , the principle of original horizontality and the principle of lateral continuity in a 1669 work on the fossilization of organic remains in layers of sediment. The first practical large-scale application of stratigraphy was by William Smith in the 1790s and early 19th century. Known as the "Father of English geology", Smith recognized

2800-492: The universe was generally termed evolutionism, while its exponents were evolutionists. In 1871 Tylor published Primitive Culture , becoming the originator of cultural anthropology . His methods were comparative and historical ethnography. He believed that a "uniformity" was manifest in culture, which was the result of "uniform action of uniform causes." He regarded his instances of parallel ethnographic concepts and practices as indicative of "laws of human thought and action." He

2856-646: The world. By excluding scientific explanation in their understanding of why and how things occur, he asserts modern religious practitioners are rudimentary. Tylor perceived the modern religious belief in God as a "survival" of primitive ignorance. However, Tylor did not believe that atheism was the logical end of cultural and religious development, but instead a highly minimalist form of monotheist deism . Tylor thus posited an anthropological description of "the gradual elimination of paganism " and disenchantment , but not secularization . Stratigraphy Stratigraphy

SECTION 50

#1732769392136

2912-433: The world. For example, God (or the divine) gave us sun to keep us warm and give us light. Tylor argued that animism is the true natural religion that is the essence of religion; it answers the questions of which religion came first and which religion is essentially the most basic and foundation of all religions. For him, animism was the best answer to these questions, so it must be the true foundation of all religions. Animism

2968-419: Was an evolutionist. The task of cultural anthropology therefore is to discover "stages of development or evolution." Evolutionism was distinguished from another creed, diffusionism , postulating the spread of items of culture from regions of innovation. A given apparent parallelism thus had at least two explanations: the instances descend from an evolutionary ancestor, or they are alike because one diffused into

3024-529: Was developed during the 19th century, based on the evidence of biologic stratigraphy and faunal succession. This timescale remained a relative scale until the development of radiometric dating , which was based on an absolute time framework, leading to the development of chronostratigraphy. One important development is the Vail curve , which attempts to define a global historical sea-level curve according to inferences from worldwide stratigraphic patterns. Stratigraphy

3080-500: Was important not only for its thorough study of human civilisation and contributions to the emergent field of anthropology, but for its undeniable influence on a handful of young scholars, such as J. G. Frazer , who were to become Tylor's disciples and contribute greatly to the scientific study of anthropology in later years. Tylor was appointed Keeper of the University Museum at Oxford in 1883, and, as well as serving as

3136-470: Was well read in classics, relies on the Roman cursus honorum, rising through the ranks, which became the basis of the English ideas of career and working your way up, to which he blends in the rationalist idea of a scala, or ladder, of life. The idea of growth or development is also borrowed from individuals. He proposed that a society has a life like that of an individual, which develops and grows. He gives

#135864