Anthro 425 1st Test

Cultures develop in a uniform and progressive manner. Most societies were considered to pass through the same series of stages and ultimately arrive at a common end.
Famous Unilinear evolutionists:
*Spencer- coined the term “survival of the fittest.” human societies evolved/became more intelligent, by means of an increasing division of labor, into complex civilizations
*Lewis Henry Morgan- Savagery-Barbarism-Civilization
-Human social progress is related to food surpluses and advancement in food collection
*Tyler- similar to Morgan’s approach, but focused on religion as the basis of intelligence
Problems with Unilinear evolution: Racist concept

Multi-linear, not based on intelligence, ethnographies and field work to debunk old theories of race superiority. Instead of presuming one culture is more intelligent than another, Particularism shows cultures are “unique in time and place.”
*Franz Boaz – The man that started it all. Father of anthropology.

Evolutionary changes are not experienced by all cultures universally; there are multiple factors that contribute to evolution. It shows the individuality of cultures.

Famous Multilinear (theory based) evolutionists and contributions:

Steward (multilinear): He is the father of Cultural Ecology. Steward focused on culture and its relationship to the environment through ADAPTATION. He combined biological and cultural anthropology with a strong emphasis on environment and social determinism.
Problems with Steward’s approach: Everything is seen as just a response to the environment. He does not involve decisions made by people to determine how culture evolves. Very different from Processualism Approach. He also is very vague because he encompasses too many factors without really any ties to the environment.
Cultural Ecology: It is both a theory and a method. The study of human interaction with ecosystems to determine how nature influences and is influenced by human social organization and culture.
How is Cultural Ecology both a theory and a method?
Theory- it helps to explain the patterns over time
Method- You can test it out using human subsistence behavior
Culture core: Julian Steward (1955:37) defined the cultural core as the features of a society that are the most closely related to subsistence activities and economic arrangements. Furthermore, the core includes political, religious, and social patterns that are connected to (or in relationship with) such arrangements
White (multilinear): White based his model on TECHNOLOGY and ENERGY. Divided his model into technological, sociological, and ideological areas. Believed you could test how a culture evolves using the “Basic Law of Cultural Evolution”- human culture evolves by increased harnessing of energy over time.
The Basic Law of Cultural Evolution was based on 3 factors: 1.) energy harnessed 2.) efficiency of technology to use energy 3.) magnitude of production
White saw 3 subsystems of culture: TECHNOLOGY, sociological systems, and ideological systems

When comparing White to Steward, who was more unilineral and why?
White was because he considered his Basic Law of Cultural Evolution as a UNIVERSAL way to measure culture. Steward believes that cultures are not equally conditioned by the environment. White believed that culture has general laws of its own. Based on these universal principles, culture evolves by itself.

Sooooooo……why were White and Steward so important to anthropology?
They are important figures that reintroduced the environment back into anthropology.

Meggers: Agriculture is the driving force of cultural evolution
Law of Environmental Limitation on Culture:
-The level to which a culture can develop is dependent upon the agricultural potentiality of the environment it occupies.
Meggers Vs. Steward
-Meggers focuses on agriculture as the means of cultural advancement, not adaptation like Steward.
-Meggers shows that agriculture effects culture, but culture can also effect the environment and productivity of agriculture (ex. Shifting cultivation/slash and burn)
-Steward believes environment is used as culture “sees fit” but Meggers believes this is beyond human wishes
-Meggers has 4 types of environment:
Type 1 : No agriculture/food gatherers
Type 2: Limited agriculture, with some slash and burn
Type 3: Slash and burn agriculture, crop rotation
Type 4: Unlimited agriculture

How is Meggers 4 types of environment similar to Steward?
Steward and Meggers both agree that environmental and climatic factors limit population and culture

Meggers vs. White
White (technology guy): Believed that cultures develop based upon diffusion of technology
Meggers (agriculture chick): “No amount of opportunity for diffusion can effect a culture advance beyond the limitations set by the environment.”

functionalism is a theory stressing the importance of interdependence among all behavior patterns and institutions within a social system to enable its long-term survival. In other words, it takes the behaviors of people and all of the other things that make up a culture (politics, religion, etc.) and says that all of these things work together to keep a culture going. Ex. Button on a Thermostat


Functionalism = no history (focuses on right now) and does NOT look at environment

Important Functionalist:
Malinowski- Saw society as a structure that functioned to meet the needs of the individual
Radcliffe Brown: Structural Functionalism

More like Steward and White (observation and theory based)
It is a theory that tries to explain the evolution of societies. Neoevolutionism is concerned with long-term, evolutionary social change and with the regular patterns of development that may be seen in unrelated, widely separated cultures. Neoevolutionists are simply descriptive and base everything on empirical information (observation not theory). A neoevolutionist believes some cultures take different paths and even skip stages that others have passed through.

What is a Neofunctionalist?
Within neofunctionalism, culture is reduced to an adaptation, and functional behaviors are homeostatic and deviation counteracting, serving to maintain the system at large (Bettinger 1996:851). Neofunctional well being is measured in tangible currencies, such as population density, that relate to fitness (as in evolutionary biology) (Bettinger 1996:852).

-Looked at local populations
-Local environment
-How local populations interacted with local environment
-Uses measurement
-Empirical Data

Lee: The !KUNG! ethnographic research to determine the input and output of energy
-Lee was criticized because he didn’t ask the !Kung! any questions….strictly observation and personal interpretation.

Measured Energy: Input-Output system….energy exchange via consumption and labor expenditure.

-Roy Rappaport: Roy A. Rappaport was responsible for bringing ecology and structural functionalism together. Rappaport defined and was included in a paradigm called neofunctionalism (see Principal Concepts). He saw culture as a function of the ecosystem. The carrying capacity (see Principal Concepts) and energy expenditure are central themes in Rappaport’s studies, conducted in New Guinea. He completed the first systematic study of ritual, religion, and ecology, and this study is characterized as synchronic (see Principal Concepts) and functionalist. The scientific revolution, functionalism in anthropology, and new ecology are the three main influences upon Rappaport. Furthermore, like Steward and Harris, he was more interested in the infrastructural aspects of society, similar to Steward. Rappaport was the first scientist to successfully reconcile ecological sciences and cybernetics with functionalism in anthropology

Cognized Operational Model: How you view yourself vs. how outsiders view you.
Cognized- your thoughts to why your society functions the way it does
Operational- their thoughts of how it functions
(Rappaport and Lee did not use this model....they didn't ask the people their thoughts.)

-Orolove: Broke down ecological anthropology into stages 1.) Steward and White 2.) Neo's 3.) Processionalism.



"the underlying historical processes which are at the root of change." Looks at the processes involved to becoming a culture.

The premise that any organization may be studied as a system to discover how component parts function and how changes to parts affect the entire system.
•System- a group of interdependent and interrelated parts forming a larger whole. Ex. Theromostat
•Functionalism- analysis that attempts to explain phenomena in terms of the functions they perform in a larger system. Ex. Button on a Theromostat

Rappaport and cybernetics = regulation of people, pigs, and gardens into a functioning system

----Benjamin S orlove set the stage!

----may be defined as the study of the relations among the population dynamics, social organization, and culture of human populations, and the ENVIRONMENT in which they live. Comparitive research, and analyses, of populations. Provides a materialist examination of the range of human activitiy.
---Contemporary ecological anthropology can be attributed to JULIAN STEWARD & LESLIE WHITE!

Emphasized quantity, quality, and distribution or resources - The aspects of culture examined were technology, social organization, demography, etc. He stressed that ENVIRONMENT influenced only certain elements of a culture. ----which he termed the 'CULTURE CORE'

Shared the emphasis on culture that steward did.
-More concerned w/ broad details of evolution than w/ specific adaptations.
-He emphasized levels of energy use as the determinant of cultural evolution.

Neoevolutionsim: (Elman Service and Polanyi) ---Evolutionary stages in political complexity and economic types.
They claimed Steward and White were both correct. Did much more "armchair anthro" work. Said "it is what it is! see that pyramid? it's a pyramid! the end!" Neofunctionalism: Claimed steward and white were both WRONG! (Marvin Harris and Roy rappaport)
-Said that social organizations and cultures of particular populations functionally adapt to environment w/out exceeding carrying capacity.
-Local populations VS adept culture
-Interactions w/enviro. in a "slice of time."
-Actually go out into field and do "ethnography" presumably. (unlike neoevolutionists.)
-Neofunctionalists introduced cybernetics
--------> this differs from functionailsm bcz Functionalism is: (precybernetics) is a theory that discusses enviornment and adaptation. It stresses the importance of interdependence among all behavior patterns/institutions w/in a social system to enable its long-term survival.
(functionailsts: radcliffe brown was a structural functinoalist
-Functionalists used COGNIVE to theorize, and talk about these texts, theories, ideolgoies, how to apply them, etc. (armchair)
---BUT neofunctionalists actually went out into the field and studied it (OPERATIONAL METHOD.) such as rappaport and harris. (not all neofunctionalists necesarilly ask q's and do a full study. it's usually just a specific time and place in history.)

Cybernetics in study: Cycle of independent parts affect society as a whole (Kaiko)
- Cybernetics emerged w/ neofunctionalism.
-----It is system structures (interdependent parts forming a whole)
----Functionalism and system premise that any organization may be studied as a system to discover how component parts function, and how changes to parts affect the entire system.
---Rappaport uses Tsembaga: the flow of how things work--- Rituals start from women complaining about the pigs, men regulating pigs and ppl, and gardens, etc.
----Way to maintain homeostatic cycle.

--Energy flows are detected in a culture: Cycle of events affect culture as a whole!!!!!! circleeeeee of lifeeee!

Meggers said agriculture is the driving force of cultural evolution.
---Law of environmental limitatio on culture:
The level to which a culture can develop is dependent upon the agricultural potentiality of the environment it occupies.
---She focused on the agriculture as the means of cultural advancement.
---there are 4 types of agriculture
--She was similar to steward in that all goes back to environment as a way in which cultures advance or limit population/culture.
-Meggers vs White: White believed culture developed based on diffisuion of technology.
---> Meggers refuted that "no amount" of opportunity for diffusion can effect a culture advance beyond the limitations set by the environment."

Lee: had data collection missing: only had stuff about daily activities of hunter/gatherers, and nothing else about "culture core," ----which steward coined and says includes religion, politics, ideology, and Lee ignores ppls conceptions abouttheir environment.
-Lee has no individual interviews or asks why they feel this way about their environemnt/subsistence methods.
-lee did not ask - he WATCHED them....and assumed his own cultural categories apply to the !Kung!
-Lee doesn't explain all of the culture core --- why do they function the way they do???