Lewis Henry Morgan Essay

In essence, social evolutionists study how cultures and societies change over time. Many early nineteenth-century anthropologists subscribed to the notion of unilineal evolution. That is, the belief of universal stages of cultural development that characterized societies and their transformation from primitive to complex (11). The American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) acts as a proper representative for the group of early social evolutionists. Despite the overwhelming popularity that social evolution experienced, the interest and followers waxed and waned as time passed. There was an especial dip in popularity with the rise and domination of historical particularism. In explicit contrast with the school of unilineal evolution, historical particularism discredited large and sweeping …show more content…
Even though the ancient Britons had iron, where it came from was deemed more important and they were not directly placed into the stage associated with iron. Therefore, the groupings are not as discrete as Morgan claims. Furthermore, some of the criteria for the categories are ethnocentric and do not fully recognize the complexity of some societies. Morgan places a particular emphasis on owning private property and how “its dominance as a passion over all other passions marks the commencement of civilization” (48). For a scholar that had a particular interest in Native American cultures (11), he fails to realize that their notion of property is vastly different than his own. ELABORATE. TALK ABOUT RACE. In addition to underlying racist tones by today’s standard, some thought Morgan failed at a very basic level. Franz Boas believed that Morgan had fundamental and illogical flaws in his groupings. He lumped together vastly different societies based on facts such as having similar weaponry (51,