''Ancient Society'' is an 1877 book by the American anthropologist
Lewis H. Morgan
Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social ev ...
Barbarism
Barbarism, barbarity, or barbarous may refer to:
* Barbarism (linguistics), a non-standard word, expression, or pronunciation
** Hybrid words, formerly called "barbarisms"
* Any society construed as barbarian
** Barbarian invasions, a period of ...
to
Civilization
A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system).
...
. Contemporary European social theorists such as
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
The dominant idea of Morgan's thought is that of ''progress''. He conceived it as a ''career'' of social ''states'' arranged in a ''scale'' on which man has ''worked his way up'' from the ''bottom''. Progress is ''historically true of the entire human family'', but not uniformly. Different ''branches'' of the family have evidenced ''human advancement'' to different conditions. He thought the scale had universal application or ''substantially the same in kind'', with ''deviations from uniformity ... produced by special causes''. Morgan hopes therefore to discern ''the principal stages of human development''.
Morgan arrived at the idea of a society's progress in part through analogy to individual development. It is an ''ascent'' to ''human supremacy on the earth''. The prime analogate is an individual working his way up in society; that is, Morgan, who was well read in classics, relies on the Roman ''cursus honorum,'' rising through the ranks, which became the basis of the English ideas of career and working your way up, to which he blends in the rationalist idea of a ''scala,'' or ladder, of life. The idea of growth or development is also borrowed from individuals. He proposed that a society has a life like that of an individual, which develops and grows.
He gives the analogy an anthropological twist and introduces the comparative method coming into vogue in other disciplines. Lewis names units called ''ethna,'' by which he means ''inventions'', ''discoveries'' and ''domestic institutions''. The ethna are compared and judged higher or lower on the scale, pair by pair. Morgan's ethna appear to comprise at least some of
Edward Burnett Tylor
Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (2 October 18322 January 1917) was an English anthropologist, and professor of anthropology.
Tylor's ideas typify 19th-century cultural evolutionism. In his works ''Primitive Culture'' (1871) and ''Anthropology'' (1 ...
's cultural objects. Morgan mentions Tylor a number of times in the book.
Morgan's standard of higher or lower is not clearly expressed. By higher he appears to mean whatever contributes better to control over the environment, victory over competitors, and spread of population. He does not mention
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...
's theory of evolution, but Darwin referred to Morgan's work in his own.
The lines of progress
The substitutions of ethna better than the previous follow several ''lines of progress''.
The ethnical periods
Morgan rejects the ''Ages of Stone, of Bronze, of Iron'', the
Three-Age System
The three-age system is the periodization of human pre-history (with some overlap into the historical periods in a few regions) into three time-periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age; although the concept may also refer to ...
of pre-history, as being insufficient characterizations of progress. This theory had been explicated by J. J. A. Worsaae in his ''The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark'', published in English in 1849. Worsaae had built his work on the foundation of evidence-based chronology by
Christian Jürgensen Thomsen
Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (29 December 1788 – 21 May 1865) was a Danish antiquarian who developed early archaeological techniques and methods.
In 1816 he was appointed head of 'antiquarian' collections which later developed into the Nat ...
, whose ''Guideline to Scandinavian Antiquity'' (''Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed'') (1836), was not published in English until 1848. The two works were highly influential to researchers in Great Britain and North America.
Morgan believed the prehistoric stages as defined by the Danish were difficult to distinguish, as they overlapped and refer only to material types of ''implements'' or tools. In addition, Morgan thought they did not fit the evidence he was finding among Native American societies in North America, in which he had closely studied social structure as an indicator of stages of civilization.Since Morgan, the European three-age system has prevailed in
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
and
archeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...
, but the age characteristics have been enlarged to include many of the additional factors which Morgan described. Morgan's ''Savagery'' and ''Barbarism'' are roughly equivalent to Braidwood's ''food gathering'' and ''food production''. Based on the ''lines of progress'', he distinguishes ''ethnical periods'', which each have a ''distinct culture'' and a ''particular mode of life'' and do not overlap in a region. He does admit to exceptions and a difficulty of determining precise borders between periods. Scientific archaeology was being developed at this time; Morgan did not have the techniques of
stratigraphy
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers ( strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...
or scientific dating available, but based his arguments on
linguistic
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
and historical speculation. (Thomsen and Worsaae are credited with the foundation of scientific archaeology, as they worked to have controlled excavations in which artifacts could be evaluated by which were found together: the beginning of stratigraphy. This evidence-based system was the start of
chronological dating
Chronological dating, or simply dating, is the process of attributing to an object or event a date in the past, allowing such object or event to be located in a previously established chronology. This usually requires what is commonly known as a "d ...