Evolution and adaptation of culture in the nowadays American anthropology

Abstract

The present article characterizes mainstreams of evolutionism in modern American cultural anthropology. Starting with the characteristics of the revival of evolutionist thought during the thirties and forties of the present century, the most important proposals of the first wave of its representatives: L. White, J. H. Steward, and V. G. Childe are described.

Furthermore, crucial theoretical problems of the second neoevolutionary wave are presented. This movement is characterized by the tendency toward solving the contradiction between "general cultural evolution" and "adaptive evolution". When analyzing neoevolutionary theories of cultural ecology widespread during the sixties, the author stresses that they had drawn attention to the importance of biological determinants in the development of culture.

In nowadays neoevolutionism, two orientations may be seen. The first one is called here "genetic evolutionism," while the second one is termed "analytic evolutionism". The most important changes during the development of the neoevolutionary orientation seem to be the following. In the area of considerations pertaining to factors of civilization development, there has occurred a tendency toward abandonment of monocausal interpretation and the adoption of multifactorial analyses. Principles of autonomy of culturological analysis were replaced by an ecological-adaptational approach tying biological and cultural evolution together. A semi-historical and stadial approach was postponed for analyses based on the history of stages of cultural adaptation took its place. Concretization of the subject of studies contributed also to weakening of the generalizing approach. That was the reason for the shift from studying macroevolution toward comparatistic analyses of microevolutionary processes. Finally, all these changes of orientation have caused the transformation of previously formal relations between a number of anthropological disciplines into ties of genuine interdisciplinary collaboration.