Socio-cultural Evolution in Archaeology and Anthropology

Pre-requisites: The ability to read and understand English in order to cover the required reading

Course objectives: The course aims to familiarize students with the history of ideas and basic theoretical concepts of socio-cultural evolution in order to grasp a firmer understanding of novel, but often controversial, theoretical paradigms in archaeology.

Course description: This one-semester course is aimed at students who are delving into theoretical research for their master studies. Evolution as an idea has been one of the most significant paradigms in the natural and social sciences for the modern world. Permeating many interpretations of society both in the past and present, an understanding of evolution as a theory must therefore be applied in theoretical research. Archaeological and anthropological theories have been greatly influenced by the dialecticism between evolutionary thinkers and cultural particularists, whose conflict of ideas can be found in the opposing paradigms of unilineal evolution and of cultural particularism. This thread is reflected in the opposition between culture historical archaeology and neo-evolutionistic anthropology, which further extends to new archaeology. The postmodern world split this same dialectic between postprocessual and new Darwinian archaeology. The course aims to instruct students within this framework so that they may apply it to their own research.

Learning Outcomes: A firm understanding of the significance of the social evolution of ideas in archaeology.

Literature/Reading:

• Bruce L. Trigger, Sociocultural Evolution, Blackwell, Oxford 1998.
• Elvin Hač, Antropološke teorije, “XX vek”, Beograd, 1979. (Knj. 1: str.1-100; 153-218)
• Jerry D. Moore, Uvod u antropologiju, Naklada Jasenski i Turk, Zagreb 2002. (17-68; 219-278)
• Stephen Shennan, Genes, Memes and Human History. Darwinian Archaeology and Cultural Evolution. Thames and Hudson, London 2002.
• Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd, Not by Genes Alone, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2005.
• Sociobiologija (priredio Darko Polšek), Naklada Jasenski i Turk, Zagreb 1997.
• Aleksandar Palavestra i Marko Porčić, Arheologija, evolucionizam i darvinizam, Etnoantropološki problemi 6, 2008/2009.
• Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson, Culture and the Evolutionary Process. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985.
• Ben Sandford Cullen, Contagious Ideas. On evolution, culture, archaeology, and Cultural Virus Theory, Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2000.
• Michael Ruse, Drawinism and Its Diskontents, Cambridge University Press, cambridge 2006.
• Ričard Dokins, Sebični gen,Vuk Karadžić, Beograd 1979
• Evolucija društvenosti (priredili Josip Hrgović i Darko Polšek), Naklada Jasenski i Turk, Zagreb 2004.
• Nikola Tucić, Evolucija, čovek, društvo, Dosije – AAOM, Beograd 1999.
• Igor Kardum, Evolucija i ljudsko ponašanje, Naklada Jasenski i Turk, Zagreb 2003.
• Robert Wright, The Moral Animal, Abacus, London 1994.
• Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, So You Think You’re Human?, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004.
• Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Genes, Peoples and Languages, Penguin Books, London 2001.
• Met Ridli, Crvena Kraljica, Dosije, Beograd 2004.
• Džared Dajmond, Mikrobi, puške, čelik, Dosije, Beograd 2004.