Anthropos: Anthropos, 100.2005

Anthropos, 100.2005

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711755

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711755

Persistenter Identifier:: 1510223378432

Titel:: Anthropos, 100.2005

Erscheinungsjahr:: 2005

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 100, 2005, Heft 1

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenartikel

Titel:: Social Evolution Revisited. Recent Trends in a Genuine Field of Anthropological Research

Sonstige Person:: Antweiler, Christoph

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Berichte und Kommentare 233 A nthrop os 100.2005 Social Evolution Revisited Recent Trends in a Genuine Field of Anthropological Research Christoph Antweiler The most salient aspect of human history is that humans spread throughout the globe, that most human collectives were transformed from small groups into large complex polities and that we nowadays live in a world characterized by an inter connectedness of most of its parts. These patterns and trends of long-term sociocultural change and the search for its mechanisms remain an important theme of anthropology. Evolutionist theorizing is one of the truly contributions of cultural anthro pology to social theory, despite the fact that it is currently still not very fashionable. Since the late 19th century quite different issues were discussed under the headings “social evolution,” “cultural evolution,” “sociocultural evolution,” or “societal evolution”: (a) the description of the long-term change of human society or of specific collectives - es pecially specific patterns or trends, e. g., their areal expansion, diversification, convergence, the general increase in societal complexity and the effects on natural ecosystems, and (b) the description of the evolution of the capacity for culture (especially among humans) and the changes in that capacity, (c) the explanation of (a), of (b), or of both. I think, that these issues should be kept ana lytically separated, precisely because they may be causally interrelated, e. g., by ways of “coevolu tion” (a term itself used for very different phe nomena). Contrary to antievolutionistic rhetoric, ‘evolutionary explanations” are far from uniform. Simplifying the variability among the many ap proaches, typical evolutionist explanations for (a) and (b) are: (d) via natural selection, (c2) via mechanisms which are formally analogous to Darwinian selection, or (c3) via other biotic mechanisms, e. g., develop mental respectively epigenetic forces. There has been an impressive discussion by human sociobiologists, Darwinian anthropologists, and evolutionary psychologists, and their critics about the evolution of the capacity for culture and human behavioural inclinations. One main result w as that the capacity for culture is itself a quite uiultifaceted phenomenon. Such research is only seldom explicitly linked to truly diachronically oriented research in patterns of prehistorical or historical long-term change (but cf., e. g., Megarry 1995 and some contributions in Dunbar et al. 1999). In this literature review I present some new monographs and edited books on cultural and so cietal evolution. 1 A renewed interest in social and cultural evolution understood as long-term change of human collectives is comparatively less known in the scientific community than the sociobio- logical and other research areas just mentioned. After neo-evolutionism became unfashionable in cultural anthropology (less in archaeology) in the 1970s, this renewed interest came up again in the mid-1980s and gained pace in the 1990s. This is evidenced by several monographs by anthropolo gists, sociologists, archaeologists, and historians. 1 2 This was added by special issues in journals, e. g., two quite different volumes of Cultural Dynamics (Antweiler and Adams 1991; Ingold 1991) and edited books (e. g., Rambo and Gillogly 1991; Feinman and Manzanilla 2000). This renaissance of evolutionism is not only an, English and Amer ican affair. There is also new work in German speaking countries and the Netherlands. 3 In order to show how lively the current discussion about evolutionary issues is in cultural anthropology and 1 Aschke, Manfred: Kommunikation, Koordination und sozi ales System. Theoretische Grundlagen für die Erklärung der Evolution von Kultur und Gesellschaft. Stuttgart: Lucius & , Lucius Verlagsgesellschaft, 2002. 375 pp. ISBN 3-8282- 0210-1. Preis: € 36,00. Cameiro, Robert L.; Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropol ogy. A Critical History. Boulder: Westview Press, 2003. 322 pp. ISBN 0-8133-3766-6. Price: £ 19.99. Coming, Peter: Nature’s Magic. Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 454 pp. ISBN 0-521-82547-4. Price: £ 19.95. Meleghy, Tamäs, und Heinz-Jürgen Niedenzu (Hrsg.); Soziale Evolution. Die Evolutionstheorie und die Sozial wissenschaften. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2003. 351 pp. ISBN 3-531-14043-4. (Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Sonderband 7) Preis; € 29,90. Wheeler, Michael, John Ziman, and Margaret A. Boden (eds.): The Evolution of Cultural Entities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 221 pp. ISBN 0-19-726262-7. (Pro ceedings of the British Academy, 112) Price: £ 29.99. 2 E. g., Ingold 1986; Hallpike 1986; Adams 1988; Maryanski and Turner 1992; Trigger 1998; Sanderson 1999; Bogucki 1999; Sanderson 2001; Johnson and Earle 2000. 3 E. g., Antweiler (1988) and Bierstedt (1997) on selectionist models, Lang (1998) on the importance of evolution for the definition of culture, Wimmer (1996) on political evolution, Claessen (2000) on structural evolution and the state, Gouds- blom and Wilterdink (2000), and Schelkle et al. (2000) on sociostructural models.

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