V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957) – Universal Evolution
V. Gordon Childe born in New Zealand and got education in Australia. He went to Cambridge in England. He became specialist in archeology of Europe and Middle East.
He wrote some important books, among which special mention may be made of “New Light on the Most Ancient East” (New York, 1934); “Man Makes Himselfy (London, 1936); “”What Happened in History” (New York, 1946) and “Social Evolution” (London & New York, 1951). All these books described evolution culture. On the basis of his archaeological work in Asia , Americas, Ocenia and Australia , he proposed that everywhere culture evolved from lower Paleolithic to Civilization then a number of intermediatery stages. Every where the sequence is same.
He described the evolution in terms of three major events viz. the invention of food-production, urbanisation and industrialisation. Thus, analysing the transitions that took place under the impact of these “revolutions”, Childe presented an overall view of the evolutionary process of delineated its common factors.
V. Gordon Childe classified the stages of cultural developments in terms of, thus, archaeological findings, which are as follows in Social Evolution (1951) book
Sr. No. Archaeological Period Cultural Development
- Paleolithic & Mesolithic Savagery (Food gatherer)
- Neolithic Barbarism(Food Producer)
- Copper Age Civilization
- Bronze Age Civilization
- Iron Civilization
- Industrial Civilization
Thus, on the basis of the excavation of tools, pottery. Invention of agriculture etc. Childe established his theory of neo-evolution. He was of opinion that even during the pre-historic period, migration took place and cultural traits diffused from one place to another. Thus, to some extent Childe also believed in the principle of diffusion. Childe was of opinion that human societies have passed through different stages and, therefore, he argued that the nineteenth century unilinear evolutionists were very much dogmatic in their approach.
It is important to note that the evolutionism of Childe yields substantive results of a very different order from those of nineteenth century evolutionists. For instance, no one disputes that hunting and food-gathering, which is Childe’s diagnostic of “Savagery”, preceded plant and animal domestication, which is his criterion of “Barbarism” and that the latter was a pre-condition of large population,, cities, internal social differentiation and specialization, as well as the development of writing and mathematics, which are characteristics of “Civilization”
He considers his methodology as Darwin methodology or Materialistic methodology. He considers the size of the population is the indicator of cultural progress. He tried to compute the size of population with each stage from lower Paleolithic to Iron age , marked population increase in each stage.
- He considers the size of the population is same as Darwinian consideration of increased fertility.
- He equated variability i.e genetic efficiency as technological efficiency.
- Origin of variations can be understood in term of Innovations. Culture acquires variations due to invention and discovery.
Criticisim
- Firstly, He did not differentiate between old hunter and gathers to present hunters as they have significant differentiation in atleast possession of tools and technology for hunting and gathering.
- Secondly, he relied upon too much on archaeological data to explain cultural evolution.
- Thirdly, he categorically rejected the idea of universal precedence of matriarchy, sexual communism etc., as argued by the classical evolutionists, without giving much details.
- Fourthly, He considers on Middle East and Europe archaeological data and did not consider what happened to the outside of these regions .
- However, instead of these weaknesses, it was Childe who for the first time talked about the technological determinism in the study of cultural evolution.
Difference between Classical Evolutionism and G.V Childe
| Classical Evolution(19th century) | G.V. Childe(20th century) |
| They depended on Secondary Data | First Hand data from excavations of Middle East and Europe. Scientific excavations of data. First time scientific archaeology done by him. |
| No objective | Objective in research |
| They thought of schema earlier and started filling data into the schema. | He studied data and started fit into stages of savagery , barbarism and civilization. |
| Studied cultural evolution using comparative method and used ethnographic data. | Used ideas of Darwinian and materialistic interpretation and used classical archaeological data. |
| They depended on cultural survival | Did not depend on cultural survival |
| They talked on technological progress as indicator cultural progress | According to Childe population size is indicator of technological progress. |
| They didnt agree on diffusion caused by invention and discovery | He said diffusion caused by invention and discovery bring the evolution into other socities |