Neo evolutionism emerged in the 1930s as a social theory to explain the evolution of societies. Prominent scholars like Julian Steward, Leslie White, and V. Gordon Childe incorporated evolutionary ideas with sociology and anthropology. Neo evolutionism rejected ideas of classical social evolutionism like determinism and universal stages of development. Instead, it emphasized empirical evidence, probability over determinism, and the possibility of different cultural pathways of evolution. Key aspects included Steward's concepts of multilinear evolution and cultural ecology, White's theory relating energy capture to cultural development, and Childe's analysis of major events like agriculture and urbanization shaping cultural evolution.

1. NEO EVOLUTIONISM
Nishanth Krishnan K.N.

2. INTRODUCTION
Social theory that explain the evolution of societies
Emerged in 1930’s
Eminent scholars like Julian steward, Leslie A. White and
V. Gordon Childe
Incorporate with Sociology and Anthropology in the
1960’s

3. EVOLUTIONIST SCHOOL: A REVIEW
Evolution:
Process by which different forms developed or
produced orderly in a system, that brings simple to more
complex, homogeneity to heterogeneity, uncertainty to
certainty.
Cultural evolution:
Defined as different successive forms in social culture
of mankind as a whole are developed in to constitute the
growth of culture over different periods of time or in continuity.
.

4. CLASSICAL EVOLUTIONIST SCHOOL
Unilinear evolutionism: stage after stage
simple to complex
Value judgment and assumptions for interpreting data.
E.B.Tylor : 3 Stages: Savagery –Barbarism-Civilization
L.H. Morgan : savagery, barbarism, and civilization , of which
the first 2 were divided in to sub periods denoted the
lower, middle , and upper.

5. The parabolic curve
Classical evolutionary theory- unilinear evolutionary
scheme
Neo evolutionary theory- Parabolic scheme
3rd stage
1. Common ownership
2. Nudism
3. Sex- freedom
2nd stage
1. Individual ownership
2. Body covered cloth
3. Monogamy
1st stage
1. Common ownership
2. Shortage of cloth
3. Sexual promiscuity

6. Vere Gordon Childe
Born-14 April 1892 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Died 19 October 1957 (aged 65)
Trained archaeologist and philologist who specialized in
the study of European prehistory
Childe accepted the socio-economic theory of Marxism
and was an early proponent of Marxist archaeology.
Childe worked for most of his life as an academic in the
United Kingdom, initially at the University of
Edinburgh, and later at the Institute of
Archaeology, London.

7. Major works
The Dawn of European Civilization, New York, 1925
New Light on the Most Ancient East , New York, 1935
What Happened in History , New York, 1946
Social Evolution , New York, 1951
Man Makes Himself , New York, 1951
What Happened in History , New York, 1953

8. Social Evolution , New York, 1951
Evolution of Culture – Three major events;
1. Invention of food production
2. Urbanization
3. Industrialization

9. Scheme of Archaeological periods and
Cultural development
Archaeological period Cultural development
1. Palaeolithic Savagery
2. Neolithic Barbarism
3. Copper age Higher Barbarism
4. Early Bronze age Civilization
Much influenced by Tylor and Morgan
“Universal evolutionist” by Julian Steward
Characteristics of cultural sequence
Savagery – Hunting and gathering
Barbarism – Plant and animal domestication
Civilization – Development of writing and mathematics

10. Weaknesses
-Lack of interest in the civilizational sequence outside of
the middle east and Europe
-Much relied on archaeological data
- could not take in to consideration the universal existing
institutions of matriarchy, sexual promiscuity, etc.

11. Julian Haynes Steward
Born January 31, 1902 Washington D.C.
Died February 6, 1972 Urbana, Illinois
Education Ph.D. in
Anthropology, University of
California, Berkeley (1925)
One of the students of A.L. Kroeber
Fieldwork: Eastern Mono and Pailute of
owens Valley

12. Major works
Theory of cultural change, 1955
The economic and social basis of primitive bands, 1928
Cultural Causality and Law: A Trial Formulation of the -
Development of Early Civilizations, 1949
Area Research: Theory and Practice, 1950
Levels of Sociocultural Integration,1951
Evolution and Process, 1953

13. Multilinear evolution
All cultures of the world have not passed through
the same developmental stage were different in
different areas or sub areas.
The cultural evolution is studied by the limited
parallels and comparing them.
The methodology is based on assumption that
significant regularities or parallels occur in culture
change, and it is concerned with determination of
laws

14. Cultural ecology
-1973 in the theory of cultural change
Three fundamental procedures
-Interrelationship between technology and environment
must be analyzed
- the behavioral patterns involved in exploitation of a
particular area by means of a particular technology must be
analyzed
- to ascertain the extent, to which the behavior pattern
entailed in exploiting the environment, affects other aspects
of culture

15. Leslie Alvin White
Born 19 January 1900, Salida, Colorado Died31 March
1975, Lone Pine, California
American Anthropologist
President of the American Anthropological
Association (1964)
His theory, published in 1959 in The Evolution of
Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall
of Rome

16. Much influenced by Marx, E.B. Tylor, L.H.
Morgan, Spencer, Engals, and Durkheim
White opposed Boas and his followers
Major books:
The evolution of culture, 1959
The science of culture, 1949

17. Processes related to socio cultural system- three
parts
Techno economic
Social
Ideological
- Culture depends upon man for its existence

18. 1. Technology is an attempt to solve the problems
of survival.
2. This attempt ultimately means capturing enough
energy and diverting it for human needs.
3. Societies that capture more energy and use it
more efficiently have an advantage over other
societies.
4. Therefore, these different societies are more
advanced in an evolutionary sense.

19. Law of cultural development
E*T=C
E= Energy, T= Technology, C= Cultural development
Social organization
N*P*R=S
N= nutrition, P= protection, R= reproduction, S= Social
organization
Property
T*L= P
T= things, L= Labour P= property

20. CONCLUSION
Neoevolutionism discards many ideas of classical social
evolutionism such as social progress.
Neoevolutionism discards the determinism argument
and introduces probability, arguing that accidents and free will
have much impact on the process of social evolution.
It also supports the counterfactual history - asking 'what if'
and considering different possible paths that social evolution
may (or might have) taken, and thus allows for the fact that
various cultures may develop in different ways, some
skipping entire stages others have passed through.

21. Neoevolutionism stresses the importance of
empirical evidence. While 19th century evolutionism used
value judgment and assumptions for interpreting data.
Neoevolutionism relied on measurable information for
analyzing the process of cultural evolution.
19th century evolutionism explained how culture develops
by giving general principles of its evolutionary
process, it was dismissed by Historical Particularism as
unscientific in the early 20th century.
It was the neoevolutionary thinkers who brought back
evolutionary thought and developed it to be acceptable to
contemporary anthropology.

22. REFERENCE
1. Upadhyay V.S, Gaya Pandey HISTORY OF
ANTHROPOLOGICAL THOUGHT, CONCEPT
PUBLISHING COMPONY, New Delhi
2. R. Jon McGee
Richard L . Warms ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY: AN
INTRODUCTORY HISTORY The McGraw-Hill
Companies,
New York
3. INTERNET

23. THANKS