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The paper edition of the Anthropology of History Yearbook is the definitive version

2015, No. (8), Anthropology and History

Zofia Sokolewicz
Ethnography/ethnology/anthropology and historical sciences versus the theory of primitive society

PDF version
Keywords: primitive society, ethnology, archaeology, history

Abstract:
The concept of primitive society was an anthropological response to theories by Darwin and Lyell as well as archeological studies of Paleolithic cultures. It also resulted from the 19th century search for the source of human cultural diversity and the issue of equality vis-à-vis diversity of human cultures. The concept of primitive society covered also uncivilized strata of civilized societies, i.e. peasant cultures. At the same time, it allowed to build a link between archeology, anthropology and ethnology. These three disciplines considered the “primitive society” as a common research subject. In Poland, Stanisław Poniatowski was the main proponent of this concept, but it can be also found in writings of Jan Czekanowski, Adam Fischer, Eugeniusz Frankowski and Kazimierz Moszyński. The concept of primitive society was abandoned in the mid 20th century as a result of the critique of colonialism, in Poland, also because of the development of the theory of social development, structuralism, phenomenology and the influence of the thought of Jan Stanisław Bystoń and Cezaria Baudouin de Courtenay Ehrenkreutz Jędrzejewiczowa

About Author:
SOKOLEWICZ ZOFIA - cultural anthropologist, Professor Emeritus of the University of Warsaw, Professor of Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology. Email: etnologia[at]uw.edu.pl.

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