Oh now you give me an easy question Neo. Understanding of foundations. Pre-literate peoples give us the closest living analogy to the ways in which the earliest humans adapted to their world. Remember that the earliest days of the discipline, before Boaz at least, anthropology was consumed with the idea of evolution. Spencer, Malinowsky, even Durkheim, were interested in the pre-literate man as a key to understanding how civilizations evolve. That sort of organic evolutionary thinking is long past, but the desire to understand how the cultures of primitive people work as a means to understand adaptation, and hopefully, the mechanism of cultural change, still persists. I think its a valid one. The mechanisms of change are the most devilish puzzles in the field, sort of the Holy Grail.
But I see where youre going, and I imagine that anthro got radicalized along with everthing else in the 60's. ;) The "noble savage" mumbojumbo you would think would have little credibility amongst anthropologists, who (should) know these people better than that. You see what you want I suppose.
There is by the way quite an extensive study of "non-exotic" cultures. <g> There's been a lot of work in the US, amongst groups as varied as Mexican migrant workers to corporate office culture, for example. There's always a bit of grumbling about that though, seems sociologists feel they're stepping on toes. ;) |
