The unilineal evolutionary theories as well as theories of universal evolutionism were disputed by many. They were regarded as conjectural history and fieldworkers found data from their specific ethnographic studies to falsify them. The stages were not found to be universally true, nor was the unilineal sequence observed everywhere.
Neo-evolutionism was the first in a series of modern multilineal evolution theories. It emerged in the 1930s and developed in the period following World War II. It bases its theories on empirical evidence available in the studies of archaeology, palaeontology, and historiography. Neo-evolutionary thinkers brought back evolutionary thought with a stress on empirical evidence. Neo-evolutionism discards many ideas of classical social evolutionism and supports counterfactual history—asking ‘what if’ and considering the different possible paths that social evolution may take, or might have taken. It suggests that various cultures may develop in different ways, some skipping entire stages others have passed through.
Anthropologist Julian Steward advanced the idea of multilinear evolution by indicating the different paths taken by technological and social evolution in different regions of the world. In 1955, Steward published his Theory of Culture Change: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution, which examined the way societies adapted to their environment. This approach was more nuanced than White‘s theory of ‘unilinear evolution‘. Steward rejected the notion of progress, and instead called attention to the Darwinian notion of ‘adaptation‘. He argued that all societies had to adapt to their environment and that societies can adopt different strategies for the exploitation of the available resources depending on the level of technology and the organization of human labour. He emphasized the point that different environments and technologies would require different kinds of adaptations, and that as the resource base or technology changed, so too would a culture. In other words, cultures do not change according to some inner logic, but rather in terms of a changing relationship with a changing environment. Based on these premises, Steward concluded that cultures do not pass through the same stages in the same order as they change. There is, thus, a cultural specificity of change. He named his theory the theory of ‘multilineal evolution’. In doing so, he questioned the possibility of creating a social theory encompassing the entire evolution of humanity. Figure 18.2 illustrates this position.
Figure 18.2 Unilinear and Multilinear Evolution Models
Note: In the unilineal evolution model, all cultures progress through set stages; in the multilineal evolution distinctive culture histories are emphasized.
In an edited volume, Evolution and Culture (1960), Marshall Sahlins and Elman Service attempted to synthesize White and Steward‘s approaches. They divided the evolution of societies into ‘general‘ and ‘specific’. General evolution was described as the tendency of cultural and social systems to increase in complexity, organization and adaptiveness to the environment. Specific evolution refers to development in different ways by the individual cultures. This occurs because of their interaction with other cultures and a diffusion of cultural traits and complexes across cultures. Since the exogenous elements are introduced to them in different combinations and at different stages of evolution, their configuration in each recipient culture has a specific pattern.
Building on, or responding to, the contributions of White and Steward, other anthropologists developed theories of cultural ecology and ecological anthropology.
The early twentieth century inaugurated a period of systematic critical examination, and rejection of theories of cultural evolution. Cultural anthropologists such as Franz Boas used sophisticated and rigorous empirical methods to argue that the theories of Spencer, Tylor and Morgan were speculative and misrepresented ethnographic data. Boas rejected the distinction between ‘primitive’ and ‘civilized’ (or ‘modern’), and argued that the so-called ‘primitive contemporary’ societies have just as much history and were just as evolved as the so-called ‘civilized’ societies. He regarded the postulated progression, which ended with civilization, as ethnocentric. He pointed out that their approach assumes that societies are clearly bounded and distinct, when in fact cultural traits and forms often cross social boundaries and diffuse among many different societies. This process is thus an important mechanism of change.
Boas introduced the culture history approach, which concentrated on fieldwork among native peoples to identify actual cultural and historical processes rather than speculative stages of growth. ‘Boas’ rejection of evolutionism, his downplaying of diffusion, and above all his insistence on the meticulous gathering of ethnographic data, all contributed to changing the agenda of anthropology as a whole, from historical questions to other ones’ (Barnard, 2000: 55).
Other critics, particularly from the developing countries of the South, observed that unilineal evolutionism was proposed precisely at the time when European powers were colonizing non-Western societies. It was thus self-serving in the sense that notions of social evolution were simply justifications for the colonialists to maintain their hold over the colonies. Unilineal evolution, in the view of these critics, is a Western myth which is seldom based on solid empirical grounds. Their points of main criticism are:
- The theory was deeply ethnocentric—it makes heavy value judgements on different societies, with Western civilization seen as the most valuable.
- It assumed that all cultures follow the same path or progression and have the same goals.
- It equated civilization with material culture (technology, cities, etc.).
- It equated evolution with progress or fitness, based on deep misunderstandings of evolutionary theory.
Today, most social anthropologists and sociologists reject the nineteenth-century notions of progress and assumptions of unilineal evolution. The new perspective emphasizes the relationship between a culture and its environment. Cultures are treated as emergent systems influenced by both the natural and the social environment.2 The more recent trend is to reject the entire evolutionary thinking and look instead at historical contingencies, contacts with other cultures, and the operation of cultural symbol systems.
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