Читать книгу Anthropology For Dummies - Cameron M. Smith - Страница 49

Combining the terms cultural and evolution is enough to make some anthropologists see red. That’s because for a long time (from the late 1800s through the 1950s), anthropology labored under a mistaken concept of how culture changed through time, crudely grafting Darwinian evolution to the concept of culture. When this mistaken view was overturned in the mid-20th century, many anthropologists also threw out an evolutionary approach to culture, a move that has many archaeologists — me included — a little steamed.

The mistaken idea was that all human societies were on a Darwinian track toward Civilization and that those that didn’t make it were — however unfortunately — simply being selected against or weeded out by the pitiless forces of nature. This idea roughly categorized foraging peoples (like Australian Aborigines, most Native Americans, and polar hunting folk) into the category of Savagery, followed by small-scale farmers (like the chiefdoms of Hawaii or New Guinea) in the category of Barbarism, which could only evolve into — and rightly should evolve into, according to the idea — Civilization. That Civilization was typified by the Victorian white male of London was a nuance that few Victorians noticed. This misconception of how culture changed (that all cultures were on the same track) was clearly and carefully used to justify colonial efforts worldwide that were considered beneficial; after all, Civilization was being brought to the Savages.

For many reasons, this theory revealed itself to be a flawed understanding: Human societies, it turns out, don’t have an automatic drive toward becoming white Victorian males. But this flaw isn’t enough to entirely ditch the concept that culture changes through time by an evolutionary process.

Archaeologists, deeply concerned with the change in cultures through time, have most carefully examined cultural change, and they are most convinced that it does change by an evolutionary process. Culture doesn’t ride on the genes — it’s taught by language. Every society has its own way of surviving, but the principles of evolution apply to culture in some important ways. I don’t dwell on them in this book, but if you’re interested, you may want to start with some more advanced readings in archaeology, such as textbooks that cover archaeological theory.

Archaeologists have proposed dozens of other lenses through which to envision and understand cultural change through time, and they’re fascinating (even the really whacky ones!). But none, in my view, has entirely explained everything, and in my experience, most archaeologists agree with me. Culture is complex, people are complex, and all kinds of events have happened in the past to shape cultural change. I say this in a few other places in this book: Single-factor models never seem to pan out.

Archaeology deals with change through time as reflected by the artifacts used by ancient humans, so its limit goes back to over three million years ago, the age of the earliest (known) artifacts. Archaeologists commonly mutter “We don’t do dinosaurs!” when people ask whether they’re excavating a dinosaur because the dinosaurs — studied by paleontologists — became extinct around 65 million years ago.