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Culture and Civilization-11
- Mr. Vachaspati V.

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Vere Gordon Childe (1892-1957) Vere Gordon Childe, Australian born, initially trained in humanities, a British archaeologist and on the basis of collection of materials remains from East and Europe, and comparing them, he attempted to make evolutionary scheme alive. He had a sense of the necessary interrelatedness of different kinds of artefacts in a given assemblage and of the interpretative implications of these interrelationships for understanding cultures that once lives. He stimulated many younger pre-historians to think in like terms. He was not known as specialist in any one category of artefact; his Bronze Age (1930) was to him a vehicle that allowed delineation of the course of his ‘Second Revolution’ in Europe. The first one was ‘Neolithic Revolution’ during Neolithic age. His famous book, which describes evolution of culture, is Social Evolution. He describes evolution in terms of three major events, 1. Invention of food production. 2. Urbanization and events. 3. Industrialization Analysing the transition that took place under the impact of three major events, he presented an overall view of evolutionary process and delineated its common factors. According to him, the evolution of archaeological periods and cultural developments are as follows: Archaeological periods cultural development 1. Palaeolithic period Savagery 2. Neolithic period Barbarism 3. Copper Age Higher Barbarism 4. Early Bronze Age Civilization. His above evolutionary scheme clearly reveals that he as very much influenced by Tylor’s and Morgan’s evolutionary schemes of cultural development, i.e., Savagery, Barbarism and Civilization. Thus, he was a devout follower of Unilinear Evolution of classical evolutionists. He did not plae particular cultural groups into Savagery, Barbarism and Civilisation as L.H.Morgan had done. But he was more close to E.B.Tylor who had talked about mankind as a whole had passed through the successive cultural development stages of Savagery, Barbarism and Civilisation. As Childe discussed evolution of culture of mankind as a whole, Julian Steward called him as Universal Evolutionist. Because Childe had placed general stages of evolution applicable to mankind as a whole not of specific or particular cultures which were the creation of local environmental factors. In establishing universal sequence of cultural development, Childe opined that all societies had lived in different historical environments and had passed through different ups and downs due to their traditions and diverged. Childe postulated different order of evolution from those of 19th century evolutionists. His cultural sequences were so general that they were neither very arguable like classical evolutionists, nor very useful. No one can dispute that hunting and gathering, which is Childe’s diagnostic of Savagery, preceded plant and animal domestication, which is his criterion of Barbarism. Domestication of plants and animal was pre-condition of large population, cities, internal social differentiation and specialisation, and the development of writing and mathematics, is his characteristics of civilisation. Childe opined that a drastic change in the life pattern of mankind appeared in civilizational stage, in which an aggressive attitude towards environment developed among mankind. Forest-dwellers or cave dwellers became house dwellers. Hunters and gatherers became food producer by adopting agriculture. Writing made them capable of preserving their tradition and mathematics came into being for counting things. The development of cities made them urbanized and technological advancement of smelting copper, bronze, iron etc made them capable of producing durable utensils and implements. Thus, according to him, at each stage of cultural development, mankind developed their technological skill to exploit the natural resources. Hence, it is called as nothing but ‘Technological Determinism’. In the early stages, less advanced technological skills, had made them less aggressive towards environment, but as knowledge went on increasing, they became more and more aggressive. Childe’s working model of evolution was like Darwinian tree of life. He treated variations as inventions, heredity as learning, diffusion as adaptation and selection as choice. It was certainly a worthy objective to seek universal laws of cultural change. When Childe discusses specific sequence of Middle East and Europe, he seems most closer to historical particularism than to his historical materials. As Marx was very much influenced by Morgan’s evolutionary scheme, and Childe also supported Morgan’s scheme, therefore, he was regarded as Marxist. But Childe relied too much on archaeological data to explain cultural evolution, but he could not be able to differentiate the old hunters and fathers from today, because they differ significantly in possession of hunting implements. He could not take into consideration of matriarchy, sexual promiscuity, etc without giving any argument. Childe was unfamiliar with the importance of irrigation in Mesopotamia and Egypt both from the perspective of productivity and organisational exigencies.

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