before we could study change over time we had to recognize that there was a distant past and that it was different than the present evolutionary perspective change over time archaeology uniquely qualified to study human past The European Middle Ages static worldview based on religion natural hierarchy The Age of the Earth Archbishop James Ussher 1650 world view created in 4004 BC used biblical genealogies historical research and astronomical cycles people believed world had remained the same since creation Catastrophism naturalists of 17th and 18th centuries saw signs of change in world degeneration from perfect state of creation changes had to be large scale catastrophic events to fit into 6000 years but these were natural processes that could be studied Uniformitarianism James Hutton Theory of the Earth 1795 Charles Lyell Principles of Geology 1830 Charles Lyell Principles of Geology 1830 changes to earth brought about by the slow agency of existing causes compared observable rate of weathering and erosion to scale of changes Tools found in same stratigraphic layer as fossil bones of extinct animals development of theory of Natural Selection influenced by Charles Lyell s Principles of Geology Thomas Malthus s An Essay on the Principles of Population Georges Cuvier vertebrate paleontology compared vertebrate anatomy established extinction as a fact Jacques Boucher de Perthes 1847 site of Saint Acheul France Antediluvian Antiquities Charles Darwin resources limit population size struggle for existence Natural Selection process by which species evolve if there is reproduction heredity individual variation variation in survival cid 127 then natural selection will occur Alfred Russell Wallace Human Evolution shocking idea for many 1856 Neander Valley Skull independently came up with the same ideas as Darwin just a little later Darwin Wallace joint paper on theory of natural selection was read to Linnaean Society in 1858 Darwin avoided mention of human evolution in On the Origin of Species was this an early form of human or diseased individual individuals in a species that have advantageous characteristics are more likely to survive have offspring and pass those characteristics on to their offspring than are individuals that do not possess them cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cultural relativism idea that an individual s beliefs and actions must be understood through their own culture societal norms and beliefs evolutionary theory in archaeology today is not teleological there is no apex endpoint or upward movement implicit in modern evolutionary theory evolution in contrast to late 19th and early 20th century ideas associated with Social Darwinism Antiquity of humans beginning to be acknowledged by 1859 Human Neanderthal skull was obviously human but different than any living humans Cultural Evolution and Early Anthropologists three age system stone bronze iron 1869 Christian Thomsen Danish museum curator placed collections into three chronological ages Early Anthropologists Late 19th and Early 20th centuries Edward Tylor Primitive Culture 1871 culture change progress upward movement unilineal evolution of culture hierarchy savagery barbarism civilization Franz Boaz early 20th century realized destructive nature of idea of progress associated with colonialism replaced idea of progress with cultural relativism Evolutionary Theory in Archaeology Today Lous Henry Morgan Ancient Societies 1877 culture changed in a predictable uniform sequence culture as adaptation change as conditions change no necessary upward movement hunter gatherers in modern world are not fossils their culture did not stop changing 12000 years ago Relationship between Anthropology and Archaeology early on in US archaeology used to learn about past of Native peoples became allied with anthropology during era of salvage ethnography bureau of american ethnology BAE old world archaeology emerged as a separate discipline often aligned with history or classics cid 127 methods and goals may or may not be anthropological cahokia Pre 1910 Museum Collections Peabody Museum Harvard Phoebe A Hearst Museum Berkeley Smithsonian Washington DC Etc antiquarianism concern with objects Beginnings of Modern Archaeology A V Kidder 1885 1963 one of the first American PhDs in archaeology Harvard 1914 research in Maya region and US Southwest pioneered interdisciplinary approach anthropological archaeology Lewis Binford 1931 2011 drew attention to the need for cid 127 middle range research ethnoarchaeology scientific methods allows us to connect behavior with material remains formulate hypotheses and test these with archaeological record general theory to explain cultural change importance of amassing collections competition with museums around the world cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127