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54-507: The Dreaming , also referred to as Dreamtime , is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal mythology . It was originally used by Francis Gillen , quickly adopted by his colleague Sir Baldwin Spencer and thereafter popularised by A. P. Elkin , who, however, later revised his views. The Dreaming is used to represent Aboriginal concepts of " Everywhen ", during which

108-434: A nature vs nurture framework). There have been a number of different approaches to the study of cultural evolution, including dual inheritance theory , sociocultural evolution , memetics , cultural evolutionism , and other variants on cultural selection theory . The approaches differ not just in the history of their development and discipline of origin but in how they conceptualize the process of cultural evolution and

162-483: A certain period of their history." Strehlow gives Altjira or Altjira mara ( mara meaning "good") as the Arrente word for the eternal creator of the world and humankind. Strehlow describes him as a tall strong man with red skin, long fair hair, and emu legs, with many red-skinned wives (with dog legs) and children. In Strehlow's account, Altjira lives in the sky (which is a body of land through which runs

216-462: A general model for quasiteleological processes for which organic evolution is but one instance". Others pursued more specific analogies notably the anthropologist F. T. (Ted) Cloak who argued in 1975 for the existence of learnt cultural instructions (cultural corpuscles or i-culture) resulting in material artefacts (m-culture) such as wheels. The argument thereby introduced as to whether cultural evolution requires neurological instructions continues to

270-481: A kind of " self-fulfilling academic prophecy ". The station-master, magistrate, and amateur ethnographer Francis Gillen first used the terms in an ethnographical report in 1896. Along with Walter Baldwin Spencer , Gillen published a major work, Native Tribes of Central Australia , in 1899. In that work, they spoke of the Alcheringa as "the name applied to the far distant past with which the earliest traditions of

324-708: A moral code, as well as rules for interacting with the natural environment ... [it] provides for a total, integrated way of life ... a lived daily reality". It embraces past, present and future. Another definition suggests that it represents "the relationship between people, plants, animals and the physical features of the land; the knowledge of how these relationships came to be, what they mean and how they need to be maintained in daily life and in ceremony ". According to Simon Wright, " jukurrpa has an expansive meaning for Warlpiri people, encompassing their own law and related cultural knowledge systems, along with what non-Indigenous people refer to as 'dreaming ' ". A dreaming

378-422: A parallel between genetic evolution and the "blind variation and selective retention" of creative ideas; work that was developed into a full theory of "socio-cultural evolution" in 1965 (a work that includes references to other works in the then current revival of interest in the field). Campbell (1965 26) was clear that he perceived cultural evolution not as an analogy "from organic evolution per se, but rather from

432-707: A particular potency or Dreaming. For example, the story of how the sun was made is different in New South Wales and in Western Australia . Stories cover many themes and topics, as there are stories about creation of sacred places, land, people, animals and plants, law and custom. In Perth , the Noongar believe that the Darling Scarp is the body of the Wagyl – a serpent being that meandered over

486-409: A supreme being), while Strehlow as a Christian missionary found presence of belief in the divine a useful entry point for proselytising. Linguist David Campbell Moore is critical of Spencer and Gillen's "Dreamtime" translation, concluding: "Dreamtime" was a mistranslation based on an etymological connection between "a dream" and " Altjira ", which held only over a limited geographical domain. There

540-416: A unified view between the natural and social sciences. There remains some accusation of biological reductionism , as opposed to cultural naturalism, and scientific efforts are often mistakenly associated with Social Darwinism . However, some useful parallels between biological and social evolution still appear to be found. Researchers Alberto Acerbi and Alex Mesoudi's criticism of Cultural Evolution lies in

594-546: Is a widespread term used by Warlpiri people and other peoples of the Western Desert cultural bloc . By the 1990s, Dreaming had acquired its own currency in popular culture , based on idealised or fictionalised conceptions of Australian mythology. Since the 1970s, Dreaming has also returned from academic usage via popular culture and tourism and is now ubiquitous in the English vocabulary of Aboriginal Australians in

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648-456: Is also criticized for being ethnocentric ; cultures are still seen as attempting to emulate western civilization. Under ethnocentricity, primitive societies are said to not yet be at the cultural levels of other Western societies. Much of the criticism aimed at cultural evolution is focused on the unilinear approach to social change. Broadly speaking in the second half of the 20th century the criticisms of cultural evolution have been answered by

702-546: Is based on a rendition of the Arandic word alcheringa , used by the Aranda (Arunta, Arrernte) people of Central Australia , although it has been argued that it is based on a misunderstanding or mistranslation. Some scholars suggest that the word's meaning is closer to " eternal , uncreated". Anthropologist William Stanner said that the concept was best understood by non-Aboriginal people as "a complex of meanings". Jukurrpa

756-617: Is often associated with a particular place, and may also belong to specific ages, gender or skin groups . Dreamings may be represented in artworks, for example "Pikilyi Jukurrpa" by Theo (Faye) Nangala represents the Dreaming of Pikilyi (Vaughan Springs) in the Northern Territory , and belongs to the Japanangka/ Nanpanangka and Japangardi/ Napanangka skin groups. Related entities are known as Mura-mura by

810-540: The Wangga genre, the songs and dances express themes related to death and regeneration. They are performed publicly with the singer composing from their daily lives or while Dreaming of a nyuidj (dead spirit). Dreaming stories vary throughout Australia, with variations on the same theme. The meaning and significance of particular places and creatures is wedded to their origin in The Dreaming, and certain places have

864-531: The Dieri and as Tjukurpa in Pitjantjatjara . "Dreaming" is now also used as a term for a system of totemic symbols, so that an Aboriginal person may "own" a specific Dreaming, such as Kangaroo Dreaming, Shark Dreaming, Honey Ant Dreaming, Badger Dreaming, or any combination of Dreamings pertinent to their country. This is because in the Dreaming an individual's entire ancestry exists as one, culminating in

918-558: The Milky Way , a river). However, by the time Strehlow was writing, his contacts had been converts to Christianity for decades, and critics suggested that Altjira had been used by missionaries as a word for the Christian God . In 1926, Spencer conducted a field study to challenge Strehlow's conclusion about Altjira and the implied criticism of Gillen and Spencer's original work. Spencer found attestations of altjira from

972-481: The Warlpiri language ) were established, some of which could travel right across Australia, through as many as six to ten different language groupings. The dreaming and travelling trails of these heroic spirit beings are the songlines. The signs of the spirit beings may be of spiritual essence, physical remains such as petrosomatoglyphs of body impressions or footprints, among natural and elemental simulacra. Some of

1026-429: The " meme ", which is analogous to that of the gene. A meme is an idea-replicator that can reproduce itself, by jumping from mind to mind via the process of one human learning from another via imitation. Along with the "virus of the mind" image, the meme might be thought of as a "unit of culture" (an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour, etc.), which spreads among the individuals of a population. The variation and selection in

1080-443: The 1890s that used the word to mean "associated with past times" or "eternal", not "god". Academic Sam Gill finds Strehlow's use of Altjira ambiguous, sometimes describing a supreme being, and sometimes describing a totem being but not necessarily a supreme one. He attributes the clash partly to Spencer's cultural evolutionist beliefs that Aboriginal people were at a pre-religion "stage" of development (and thus could not believe in

1134-556: The Dreaming into other languages are based on the translation of the word dream . Examples include Espaces de rêves in French ("dream spaces") and Snivanje in Croatian (a gerund derived from the verb for "to dream"). The concept of the Dreaming is inadequately explained by English terms, and difficult to explain in terms of non-Aboriginal cultures. It has been described as "an all-embracing concept that provides rules for living,

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1188-589: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.226 via cp1108 cp1108, Varnish XID 215722861 Upstream caches: cp1108 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:49:56 GMT Cultural evolution Cultural evolution, historically also known as sociocultural evolution , was originally developed in the 19th century by anthropologists stemming from Charles Darwin 's research on evolution . Today, cultural evolution has become

1242-417: The ambiguity surrounding the analogy between cultural and genetic evolution . They clarify the distinction between cultural selection (high-fidelity replication of traits) and cultural attraction (reconstruction of traits with lower fidelity). They argue that both mechanisms coexist in cultural evolution, making it essential to empirically determine their prevalence in different contexts, addressing confusion in

1296-532: The ancestor or spirit beings inhabiting the Dreamtime become one with parts of the landscape, such as rocks or trees. The concept of a life force is also often associated with sacred sites, and ceremonies performed at such sites "are a re-creation of the events which created the site during The Dreaming". The ceremony helps the life force at the site to remain active and to keep creating new life: if not performed, new life cannot be created. Dreaming existed before

1350-455: The assumptions, theories, and methods that they apply to its study. In recent years, there has been a convergence of the cluster of related theories towards seeing cultural evolution as a unified discipline in its own right. Aristotle thought that development of cultural form (such as poetry) stops when it reaches its maturity. In 1873, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine , it was written: "By

1404-399: The basis for a growing field of scientific research in the social sciences, including anthropology, economics, psychology, and organizational studies . Previously, it was believed that social change resulted from biological adaptations ; anthropologists now commonly accept that social changes arise in consequence of a combination of social, environmental, and biological influences (viewed from

1458-407: The body of knowledge surrounding it. One of the hallmarks of evolutionary epistemology is the notion that empirical testing alone does not justify the pragmatic value of scientific theories but rather that social and methodological processes select those theories with the closest "fit" to a given problem. The mere fact that a theory has survived the most rigorous empirical tests available does not, in

1512-419: The calculus of probability, predict its ability to survive future testing. Karl Popper used Newtonian physics as an example of a body of theories so thoroughly confirmed by testing as to be considered unassailable, but they were nevertheless improved on by Albert Einstein 's bold insights into the nature of space-time. For the evolutionary epistemologist, all theories are true only provisionally, regardless of

1566-436: The copying process enables Darwinian evolution among memeplexes and therefore is a candidate for a mechanism of cultural evolution. As memes are "selfish" in that they are "interested" only in their own success, they could well be in conflict with their biological host's genetic interests. Consequently, a "meme's eye" view might account for certain evolved cultural traits, such as suicide terrorism, that are successful at spreading

1620-445: The cultural progression. Morgan gave no example of lower savagery, as even at the time of writing few examples remained of this cultural type. At the time of expounding his theory, Morgan's work was highly respected and became a foundation for much of anthropological study that was to follow. There began a widespread condemnation of unilinear theory in the late 19th century. Unilinear cultural evolution implicitly assumes that culture

1674-560: The degree of empirical testing they have survived. Popper is considered by many to have given evolutionary epistemology its first comprehensive treatment, but Donald T. Campbell had coined the phrase in 1974. As a relatively new and growing scientific field, cultural evolution is undergoing much formative debate. Some of the prominent conversations are revolving around Universal Darwinism , dual inheritance theory, and memetics. More recently, cultural evolution has drawn conversations from multi-disciplinary sources with movement towards

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1728-408: The field. Cultural evolution has been criticized over the past two centuries that it has advanced its development into the form it holds today. Morgan's theory of evolution implies that all cultures follow the same basic pattern. Human culture is not linear, different cultures develop in different directions and at differing paces, and it is not satisfactory or productive to assume cultures develop in

1782-693: The first half of the 20th century before American anthropologists, including Leslie A. White , Julian H. Steward , Marshall D. Sahlins , and Elman R. Service , revived the debate on cultural evolution. These theorists were the first to introduce the idea of multilinear cultural evolution. Under multilinear theory, there are no fixed stages (as in unilinear theory) towards cultural development. Instead, there are several stages of differing lengths and forms. Although, individual cultures develop differently and cultural evolution occurs differently, multilinear theory acknowledges that cultures and societies do tend to develop and move forward. Leslie A. White focused on

1836-502: The idea that all worldly knowledge is accumulated through one's ancestors. Many Aboriginal Australians also refer to the world-creation time as "Dreamtime". The Dreaming laid down the patterns of life for the Aboriginal people. Creation is believed to be the work of culture heroes who travelled across a formless land, creating sacred sites and significant places of interest in their travels. In this way, " songlines " (or Yiri in

1890-423: The idea that different cultures had differing amounts of 'energy', White argued that with greater energy societies could possess greater levels of social differentiation. He rejected separation of modern societies from primitive societies. In contrast, Steward argued, much like Darwin's theory of evolution, that culture adapts to its surroundings. 'Evolution and Culture' by Sahlins and Service is an attempt to condense

1944-469: The innate capacity for acquiring language. Darwin's ideas, along with those of such as Comte and Quetelet , influenced a number of what would now be called social scientists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hodgson and Knudsen single out David George Ritchie and Thorstein Veblen , crediting the former with anticipating both dual inheritance theory and universal Darwinism. Despite

1998-579: The land creating rivers, waterways and lakes and who created the Swan River . In another example, the Gagudju people of Arnhemland , for whom Kakadu National Park is named, believe that the sandstone escarpment that dominates the park's landscape was created in the Dreamtime when Ginga (the crocodile-man) was badly burned during a ceremony and jumped into the water to save himself. Anthropologist Too Many Requests If you report this error to

2052-399: The land was inhabited by ancestral figures, often of heroic proportions or with supernatural abilities. These figures were often distinct from gods, as they did not control the material world and were not worshipped but only revered . The concept of the Dreamtime has subsequently become widely adopted beyond its original Australian context and is now part of global popular culture. The term

2106-405: The life of the individual begins, and continues to exist when the life of the individual ends. Both before and after life, it is believed that this spirit-child exists in the Dreaming and is only initiated into life by being born through a mother. The spirit of the child is culturally understood to enter the developing fetus during the fifth month of pregnancy. When the mother felt the child move in

2160-436: The meme of martyrdom, but fatal to their hosts and often other people. "Evolutionary epistemology" can also refer to a theory that applies the concepts of biological evolution to the growth of human knowledge and argues that units of knowledge themselves, particularly scientific theories, evolve according to selection. In that case, a theory, like the germ theory of disease , becomes more or less credible according to changes in

2214-616: The point where civilization develops hierarchies. The concept behind unilinear theory is that the steady accumulation of knowledge and culture leads to the separation of the various modern day sciences and the build-up of cultural norms present in modern-day society. In Lewis H. Morgan 's book Ancient Society (1877), Morgan labels seven differing stages of human culture: lower, middle, and upper savagery; lower, middle, and upper barbarism; and civilization. He justifies this staging classification by referencing societies whose cultural traits resembled those of each of his stage classifications of

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2268-555: The present day . In the 19th century cultural evolution was thought to follow a unilineal pattern whereby all cultures progressively develop over time. The underlying assumption was that Cultural Evolution itself led to the growth and development of civilization. Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century declared indigenous culture to have "no arts, no letters, no society" and he described facing life as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." He, like other scholars of his time, reasoned that everything positive and esteemed resulted from

2322-601: The principle which Darwin describes as natural selection short words are gaining the advantage over long words, direct forms of expression are gaining the advantage over indirect, words of precise meaning the advantage of the ambiguous, and local idioms are everywhere in disadvantage". Cultural evolution, in the Darwinian sense of variation and selective inheritance, could be said to trace back to Darwin himself. He argued for both customs (1874 p. 239) and "inherited habits" as contributing to human evolution, grounding both in

2376-402: The rediscovery of Mendelian genetics but were revived, especially by Fisher , Haldane , and Wright , who developed the first population genetic models and as it became known the modern synthesis. Cultural evolutionary concepts, or even metaphors, revived more slowly. If there were one influential individual in the revival it was probably Donald T. Campbell . In 1960 he drew on Wright to draw

2430-474: The same way. A further key critique of cultural evolutionism is what is known as "armchair anthropology". The name results from the fact that many of the anthropologists advancing theories had not seen first hand the cultures they were studying. The research and data collected was carried out by explorers and missionaries as opposed to the anthropologists themselves. Edward Tylor was the epitome of that and did very little of his own research. Cultural evolution

2484-439: The sense that cultures were no longer compared, but they were assessed uniquely. Boas, along with several of his pupils, notably A.L. Kroeber , Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead , changed the focus of anthropological research to the effect that instead of generalizing cultures, the attention was now on collecting empirical evidence of how individual cultures change and develop. Cultural particularism dominated popular thought for

2538-419: The slow development away from this poor lowly state of being. Under the theory of unilinear Cultural Evolution, all societies and cultures develop on the same path. The first to present a general unilineal theory was Herbert Spencer . Spencer suggested that humans develop into more complex beings as culture progresses, where people originally lived in "undifferentiated hordes" culture progresses and develops to

2592-418: The stereotypical image of social Darwinism that developed later in the century, neither Ritchie nor Veblen were on the political right. The early years of the 20th century and particularly World War I saw biological concepts and metaphors shunned by most social sciences. Even uttering the word evolution carried "serious risk to one's intellectual reputation." Darwinian ideas were also in decline following

2646-657: The tribe deal". Five years later, in their Northern Tribes of Central Australia , they gloss the far distant age as "the dream times", link it to the word alcheri meaning "dream", and affirm that the term is current also among the Kaitish and Unmatjera . Early doubts about the precision of Spencer and Gillen's English gloss were expressed by the German Lutheran pastor and missionary Carl Strehlow in his 1908 book Die Aranda ( The Arrernte ). He noted that his Arrernte contacts explained altjira , whose etymology

2700-406: The views of White and Steward into a universal theory of multilinear evolution. Robert Wright recognized the inevitable development of cultures. He proposed that population growth was a crucial component of cultural evolution. Population has a symbiotic relationship with technological, economic, and political development. Richard Dawkins ' 1976 book The Selfish Gene proposed the concept of

2754-456: The womb for the first time, it was thought that this was the work of the spirit of the land in which the mother then stood. Upon birth, the child is considered to be a special custodian of that part of their country and is taught the stories and songlines of that place. As Wolf (1994: p. 14) states: "A 'black fella' may regard his totem or the place from which his spirit came as his Dreaming. He may also regard tribal law as his Dreaming." In

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2808-499: Was borne out of the United States and Western Europe . That was seen by many to be racist, as it assumed that some individuals and cultures were more evolved than others. Franz Boas , a German-born anthropologist, was the instigator of the movement known as 'cultural particularism' in which the emphasis shifted to a multilinear approach to cultural evolution. That differed to the unilinear approach that used to be favoured in

2862-611: Was some semantic relationship between " Altjira " and "a dream", but to imagine that the latter captures the essence of "Altjira" is an illusion. The complex of religious beliefs encapsulated by the Dreamings are also called: In English, anthropologists have variously translated words normally understood to mean Dreaming or Dreamtime in a variety of other ways, including "Everywhen", "world-dawn", "ancestral past", "ancestral present", "ancestral now" (satirically), "unfixed in time", "abiding events" or "abiding law". Most translations of

2916-468: Was unknown, as an eternal being who had no beginning. In the Upper Arrernte language , the proper verb for "to dream" was altjirerama , literally "to see God". Strehlow theorised that the noun is the somewhat rare word altjirrinja , which Spencer and Gillen gave a corrupted transcription and a false etymology. "The native," Strehlow concluded, "knows nothing of 'dreamtime' as a designation of

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