Foundations
Core ideas of classical (unilinear) evolutionism
Nineteenth-century anthropologists argued that all human societies climb the same ladder of progress; differences among living peoples were read as different rungs on that ladder.
- Unilinear evolution means every society is believed to pass through the same sequence of stages in the same order.
- Spatial differences among contemporary cultures were treated as temporal differences: a living foraging group was cast as a living picture of Europe’s past.
- The supposed direction of change was from simple to complex forms, and from social homogeneity toward greater differentiation of roles and institutions.
- Psychic Unity of Mankind held that human minds share a fundamental cognitive structure worldwide, so similar conditions independently produce similar inventions (parallel invention).
- The doctrine of survivals treated odd modern customs as habit-carried fossils of earlier stages, usable as evidence for reconstructing the past.
Examples
- Teaching examples of survivals: saying “bless you” after a sneeze, Halloween customs, or formal handshakes as residues of older meanings.
Thinker
E.B. Tylor (1832–1917) — culture, religion and language
Tylor is taught as a founder of modern anthropology for systematising culture as a comparative science.
- Major books: Anahuac (1861); Researches into the Early History of Mankind (1865); Primitive Culture (1871), which carries his classic definition of culture.
- He treated culture as the complex whole of knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and other capabilities acquired by humans as members of society.
- Methodological pillar: uniformitarianism — cultural and mental processes were assumed to operate uniformly across time and space.
- Evolution of religion: speculation over dreams and death led from animism (soul or spirit in beings and things) to polytheism (nature gods) and finally monotheism.
- Evolution of language: from gestures and interjections toward grammar and an expanded vocabulary.
Examples
- Animism as the starting stage: explaining illness, dreams or natural forces by attributing spirit or soul to persons, animals or objects.
Thinker
L.H. Morgan (1818–1881) — kinship, technology and institutions
Morgan combined Iroquois fieldwork with a global comparative programme that made kinship and technological stages central to social evolution.
- Major books: League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois (1851); Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871); Ancient Society (1877).
- Kinship terminologies were read as slow-changing records of past social behaviour: language lags behind social structure.
- Classificatory kinship uses the same term for lineals and collaterals (for example, father’s brother called by the same term as father), which Morgan linked to earlier group marriage or indeterminate parentage.
- Descriptive kinship sharply distinguishes lineals from collaterals and was tied, in his account, to private property and clearer inheritance lines.
- Government: from societas (kin-based, relatively egalitarian organisation through gentes, clans and tribes) to civitas (territorial, property-based state).
- Descent: from early promiscuity to matriliny (maternity certain) and then patriliny once male property ownership mattered.
- Family forms: consanguineous → punaluan (exogamous group) → syndasmian/pairing → patriarchal → monogamous.
Examples
- Explain each technological stage with its marker (fire, pottery, iron, writing) rather than only naming Savagery–Barbarism–Civilization.
| Stage | Illustrative marker |
|---|---|
| Lower Savagery | Speech and fruit-based subsistence |
| Middle Savagery | Fire and fishing |
| Upper Savagery | Bow and arrow |
| Lower Barbarism | Pottery |
| Middle Barbarism | Animal domestication and irrigation agriculture |
| Upper Barbarism | Iron smelting |
| Civilization | Writing and literacy |
Thinker
J.G. Frazer (1854–1941) — magic, religion and totemism
Frazer’s comparative, largely armchair ethnology traced an intellectual ladder of the human mind and catalogued ritual worldwide.
- Major books: The Golden Bough (1890); Totemism and Exogamy (1910).
- Intellectual evolution of the psyche: magic → religion → science.
- Magical stage: the universe is treated as governed by impersonal, unchanging laws that humans can manipulate.
- Homeopathic (imitative) magic follows the law of similarity — like produces like (image magic, voodoo-doll logic).
- Contagious magic follows the law of contact — things once in contact continue to affect each other (hair, nail or cloth charms).
- Religious stage: after magic fails, people shift from trying to control nature to petitioning supernatural powers through prayer and sacrifice.
- Scientific stage: empirical observation and cause-and-effect reasoning replace magical and religious explanations as the dominant mode.
- On totemism: mystical kinship with a plant or animal; when the totem was linked to conception, Frazer argued it became hereditary and encouraged exogamy to avoid group incest.
Examples
- Homeopathic example: acting on an image or effigy to affect the person represented.
- Contagious example: using a person’s hair or clothing in a rite aimed at that person.
Critique
Criticisms of classical evolutionism
- Ethnocentric and often racist: Western European civilisation was presumed the pinnacle, and the scheme could be used to justify colonialism.
- Conjectural history: speculative armchair deduction without systematic, long-term fieldwork.
- Flawed progress model: ignored degeneration, regression and multiple pathways; magic, religion and science coexist in modern life.
- Static fallacy: treated contemporary tribal peoples as static living fossils of the past.
- Counter-evidence: Henry Maine (Ancient Law) argued patriarchal structures were ancient, opposing Morgan’s mandatory early matriarchy; Lubbock questioned primitive matriliny on ethnographic grounds.
Legacy
Legacy
- Despite deep flaws, classical evolutionism helped establish anthropology as a comparative discipline concerned with culture and social organisation.
- Tylor’s culture definition, Morgan’s kinship comparison, and Frazer’s vocabulary of magic and ritual remained reference points for later schools.
- Diffusionism, Boasian particularism and functionalism all defined themselves partly against unilinear evolutionism.
Pair with syllabus short notes for clause-by-clause Paper coverage.