Historical Development Blog Lewis Henry Morgan

 Lewis Henry Morgan 


    Lewis Henry Morgan was a founder of scientific anthropology and is best known for studying kinship

 systems and social evolution. Kinship terminology is blood relationships between people and their

 labels. Lewis attempted to connect the evolution of kinship to technological changes and the evolution of

 property forms. In the early 1840s he began to show interest in Native Americans and studied the impact

 of colonialism and oppression on the Native Americans. He was adopted by the Seneca tribe in 1846 who

 was his main tribe of interest. Lewis studied the Seneca way of designating relatives. He found that some

 of their relatives were in Ojibwa in northern Michigan and also even in Asia. Lewis' study of kinship led

 to his theory of cultural evolution which was one of the first major scientific accounts of the evolution of

 civilization. Lewis advocated for changes in food production stating that hunting and gathering was

 savagery, settled agriculture was barbarism, and urban society having advanced agriculture was

 civilization. Lewis in some way disturbed the tribe he was studying by saying their way of food

 production were "savage".For many years Lewis was the dean of American Anthropology and brought 

lots of attention to factors of cultural and social evolution. 


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