16 Evolution of human society

Dr. Mary Grace ‘D’ Tungdim

Contents:

Introduction
History of human society
Evolution of society among stone age humans
Some of the Cultural effects on behaviour
Behaviour of group
Societal Change
Social trade-offs
Political and economic systems
Social Conflict
Technology and human society
Spencer’s theory of social evolution

1. Simple Society

2. Compound Societies

3. Doubly Compound Societies

4. Trebly Compound Societies

Summary

Learning Objectives:

1. To study the history of human society

2. To study the evolution of human society

Introduction

Man is a social animal. Human beings or ‘homo sapiens’ cannot live alone, they live in either small groups, large groups/communities/societies. We human beings as a species, are social beings who exist in the company of our fellow beings. We organize ourselves into various kinds of social groupings, such as nomadic bands, villages, cities, and countries, in which we work, trade, play, reproduce, and interact in many other ways. Unlike other species, human beings combine socialization with deliberate changes in social behaviour and organization over time. Consequently, the patterns of human society differ from place to place and era to era and across cultures, making the social world a very complex and dynamic environment. The processes of intensification, integration and stratification which lead to the transformation of human societies are due to the interconnected processes of technological change and population growth which are the engine of social change.

History of human society

There are archaeological evidences that our ancestors lived in groups and shared whatever prey they hunted or food they gathered. In a way, it can be said that they lived in groups or in unordered society. With passage of time, human societies have evolved from unsettled to settled, hunting and gathering to agrarian and from agrarian to industrial societies. There are many factors responsible for evolution of human societies, viz.; social evolution, biological evolution, socio-cultural evolution, evolution of technology, evolution of socio-cultural psychology. In evolutionary biology there are different forces that acts for the evolution of humans. The forces are namely: Hardy Weinberg principle, Mutation, Gene, Migration or gene flow, Genetic drift, Recombination and Natural selection. This is despite the social mechanisms responsible for the development and maintenance of societies among human beings which had fascinated and intrigued philosophers and scientists since time immemorial.

The first consideration of evolution of humans appeared in the Origin of Species (Darwin 1859/1958). After more than two decades of the theoretical appearance of human evolution, Darwin turned to the evolution of human societies. Darwin in his book The Descent of Man (1871) stressed about the difference between humans and animals, in which he attributed the important difference to the moral senses or conscience displayed by human beings. Humans are benefitted by the mutual assistance among groups which is in tandem with the modern theories of social evolution (Boyd & Richerson, 1996; Clutton-Brock, 2002). So, Darwin’s holistic view of biological adaptation in which he always included the theoretical concepts of social behaviour were eclipsed by the growth of other biological disciplines.

There are several key aspects of human society, viz.; cultural effects on human behaviour, the organization and behaviour of groups, the processes of social change, social trade-offs, forms of political and economic organization, mechanisms for resolving conflict among groups and individuals, and national and international social systems. There are many factors responsible for evolution of human society.

Evolution of society among stone age humans

Archaeological evidences and remnants pointed that even the stone age humans settled in permanent communities and adopted complex economic and social systems thousands of years before agriculture was practiced. These evidences are the hottest topics as it superseded the prevailing the prevailing notion that stone age foragers as nomadic people who lived hand to mouth in small, egalitarian bands. This image was re-enforced by the present day examples of hunter-gatherers like the bushmen of Kalahari desert. There are also archaeological evidences found in all parts of the world. Some of the findings are beads and pendants found in Western Europe believed to be existent 32,000 years ago which are manufactured by standardized methods and believed to be worn for social identity. There are also settlements of mammoth bone houses in Central Russia dating to around 20,000 years ago and evidences of elaborate villages occupied by middle foragers nearly 13,000 years ago.

In a way, pre-historic hunter gatherers were much more diverse and highly organized than has been thought and perceived (Steven, 1988). They fully displayed the characteristics of a formally regulated society. The pre-agricultural foragers also developed banking systems in which food surpluses were stored. This is evident from the earlier writings in the Bible where Joseph creates a long term agriculture policy and infrastructure (Genesis 41: 46-57). They traded goods over long distances, fashioned a burgeoning number and variety of tools and implements and produced luxury items, ceramics and art. There was further cultural intensification of all these activities with the development of agriculture. Therefore, in a way agriculture intensified cultural advancements.

Some of the Cultural effects on behaviour

Human behaviour is affected both by genetic inheritance and by experience. The ways in which people develop are shaped by social experience and circumstances within the context of their inherited genetic potential. Each person is born into a social and cultural setting—family, community, social class, language, religion—and eventually develops many social connections. The way a child thinks or behave is affected by the characteristics of a child’s social setting affect how he or she learns to think and behave, by means of instruction, rewards and punishment, and example. This setting includes home, school, neighbourhood, and also, perhaps, local religious and law enforcement agencies. Then there are also the child’s mostly informal interactions with friends, other peers, relatives, and the entertainment and news media. How individuals will respond to all these influences, or even which influence will be the most potent, tends not to be predictable. There is, however, some substantial similarity in how individuals respond to the same pattern of influences—that is, to being raised in the same culture. Furthermore, culturally induced behaviour patterns, such as speech patterns, body language, and forms of humour, become so deeply embedded in the human mind that they often operate without the individuals themselves being fully aware of them.

Behaviour of group

In addition to belonging to the social and cultural settings into which they are born, people voluntarily join groups based on shared occupations, beliefs, or interests (such as unions, political parties, or clubs). Membership in these groups influences how people think of themselves and how others think of them. These groups impose expectations and rules that make the behaviour of members more predictable and that enable each group to function smoothly and retain its identity. The rules may be informal and conveyed by example, such as how to behave at a social gathering, or they may be written rules that are strictly enforced. Formal groups often signal the kind of behaviour they favour by means of rewards and punishments.

Affiliation with any social group, whether one joins it voluntarily or is born into it, brings some advantages of larger numbers: the potential for pooling resources such as money or labour, concerted effort such as strikes, boycotts, or voting, and identity and recognition such as organizations, emblems, or attention from the media. Within each group, the members’ attitudes, which often include an image of their group as being superior to others, help ensure cohesion within the group but can also lead to serious conflict with other groups. Attitudes toward other groups are likely to involve stereotyping— treating all members of a group as though they were the same and perceiving in those people’s actual behaviour only those qualities that fit the observer’s preconceptions. Such social prejudice may include blind respect for some categories of people, such as doctors or clergy, as well as blind disrespect for other categories of people who are, say, foreign-born or women.

Societal Change

Societies, like species, evolve in directions that are opened or constrained in part by internal forces such as technological developments or political traditions. The conditions of one generation limit and shape the range of possibilities open to the next. On the one hand, each new generation learns the society’s cultural forms and thus does not have to reinvent strategies for producing food, handling conflict, educating young people, governing, and so forth. It also learns aspirations for how society can be maintained and improved. On the other hand, each new generation must address unresolved problems from the generation before: tensions that may lead to war, wide-scale drug abuse, poverty and deprivation, racism, and a multitude of private and group grievances. Grievances may be relieved just enough to make people tolerate them, or they may overflow into revolution against the structure of the society itself. Many societies continue to perpetuate centuries-old disputes with others over boundaries, religion, and deeply felt beliefs about past wrongs.

Governments generally attempt to engineer social change by means of policies, laws, incentives, or coercion. Sometimes these efforts work effectively and actually make it possible to avoid social conflict. At other times they may precipitate conflict. For example, setting up agricultural communes in the Soviet Union against the farmers’ wishes to farm their own private land was achieved only with armed force and the loss of millions of lives. The liberation of slaves in the United States came only as one consequence of a bloody civil war; a hundred years later, elimination of explicit racial segregation was achieved in some places only by use of legislative action, court injunctions, and armed military guard—and continues to be a major social issue.

External factors—including war, migration, colonial domination, imported ideas, technology or plagues, and natural disasters—also shape the ways in which each society evolves.

The size of the human population, its concentration in particular places, and its pattern of growth are influenced by the physical setting and by many aspects of culture: economics, politics, technology, history, and religion. In response to economic concerns, national governments set very different policies—some to reduce population growth, some to increase it. Some religious groups also take a strong stand on population issues.

Leaders of the Roman Catholic church, for example, have long campaigned against birth control, whereas, in recent years, religious leaders of other major faiths have endorsed the use of birth control to restrict family size.

In turn, social systems are influenced by population—its size, its rate of change, and its proportions of people with different characteristics (such as age, sex, and language). Great increase in the size of a population requires greater job specialization, new government responsibilities, new kinds of institutions, and the need to marshal a more complex distribution of resources. Population patterns, particularly when they are changing, are also influential in changing social priorities. The greater the variety of subcultures, the more diverse the provisions that have to be made for them. As the size of a social group increases, so may its influence on society. The influence may be through markets (such as young people who, as a group, buy more athletic equipment), voting power (for example, old people are less likely to vote for school bond legislation), or recognition of need by social planners (for example, more mothers who work outside the home will require child-care programs).

Social trade-offs

Choices among alternative benefits and costs are unavoidable for individuals or for groups. To gain something we want or need, it is usually necessary to give up something we already have, or at least give up an opportunity to have gained something else instead. For example, the more the public spends as a whole on government-funded projects such as highways and schools, the less it can spend on defence (if it has already decided not to increase revenue or debt).

Social trade-offs are not always economic or material. Sometimes they arise from choices between our private rights and the public good: laws concerning cigarette smoking in public places, cleaning up after pets, and highway speed limits, for instance, restrict the individual freedom of some people for the benefit of others. Or choices may arise between aesthetics and utility. For example, a proposed large-scale apartment complex may be welcomed by prospective tenants but opposed by people who already live in the neighbourhood.

Political and economic systems

In most of the world’s countries, national power and authority are allocated to various individuals and groups through politics, usually by means of compromises between conflicting interests. Through politics, governments are elected or appointed, or, in some cases, created by armed force. Governments have the power to make, interpret, and enforce the rules and decisions that determine how countries are run.

The rules that governments make encompass a wide range of human affairs, including commerce, education, marriage, medical care, employment, military service, religion, travel, scientific research, and the exchange of ideas. A national government—or, in some cases, a state or local government—is usually given responsibility for services that individuals or private organizations are believed not to be able to perform well themselves. The U.S. Constitution, for example, requires the federal government to perform only a few such functions: the delivery of mail, the taking of the census, the minting of money, and military defence. However, the increasing size and complexity of U.S. society has led to a vast expansion of government activities.

Today the government is directly involved in such areas as education, welfare, civil rights, scientific research, weather prediction, transportation, preservation of national resources such as national parks, and much more. Decisions about the responsibilities that national, state, and local governments should have are negotiated among government officials, who are influenced by their constituencies and by centres of power such as corporations, the military, agricultural interests, and labour unions.

The political and economic systems of nations differ in many ways, including the means of pricing goods and services; the sources of capital for new ventures; government-regulated limits on profits; the collecting, spending, and controlling of money; and the relationships of managers and workers to each other and to government. The political system of a nation is closely intertwined with its economic system, refereeing to the economic activity of individuals and groups at every level.

Social Conflict

All the human societies always been festooned with conflict between individuals, groups and so on, and all societies have their own systems for regulating it. Conflict between people or groups often arises from competition for resources, power, and status. Family members compete for attention. Individuals compete for jobs and wealth. Nations compete for territory and prestige. Different interest groups compete for influence and the power to make rules. Often the competition is not for resources but for ideas—one person or group wants to have the ideas or behaviour of another group suppressed, punished, or declared illegal. Conflicts also add to the rise of new society which may be due to displacement or dispersion.

Technology and human society

Technology also played a major role in human behaviour. The high value placed on new technological invention in many parts of the world has led to increasingly rapid and inexpensive communication and travel, which in turn has led to the rapid spread of fashions and ideas in clothing, food, music, and forms of recreation. Books, magazines, radio, social networking sites and television describe ways to dress, raise children, make money, find happiness, get married, cook, and built relationships. They also implicitly promote values, aspirations, and priorities by the way they portray the behaviour of people such as children, parents, teachers, politicians, and athletes, and the attitudes they display toward violence, sex, minorities, the roles of men and women, and lawfulness. The revolution in the internet based technology have to some extent impacted the way of life and behaviour in the society. This has turned the world into a global village where information whether good or bad can now be shared within seconds of time.

Spencer’s theory of social evolution

As stated by Spencer the underlying of all evolution are:

1. Movement from simple to complex.

2. Movement from homogenous to heterogeneous.

Spencer utilized both physical and biological evolution to explain his theory of social evolution. According to his principle of biological evolution those creatures who survived in the struggle for existence are the ones who are able to make effective adjustments with changing circumstances. Thus, in a way the society is moving from homogeneous to heterogeneous structure and the society is also moving from indefinite to definite stage. Likewise, Spencer applied the concept of biological evolution in the cultural perspective and carried on to indicate that those cultures survive which are able to adjust themselves with the changing circumstances. If a civilization is unable to make adjustment with the changing circumstances it caves in and gradually becomes extinct.

Spencer’s theory of social evolution points out to two stages:

I. The movement from simple to compound societies.

II. Change from militant society to industrial society.

I. The movement from simple to compound societies—This is seen in four types of societies in terms of evolutionary levels.

1. Simple Society:

Spencer defined the simple society as “one which forms a single working whole un-subjected to any other and of which the parts co-operate with or without a regulating centre for certain public ends.”

These societies were predominantly small, nomadic and lacking in stable relationship structure. They had low degrees of differentiation, specialization, and integration. Examples are the Eskimos, the Fuegians, Guiana tribes, the new Caledonians and the Pueblo Indians.

2. Compound Societies:

Compound societies were presented as having generally come about through either a peaceful or a violent merger of two or more simple societies. They tended to be predominantly settled agricultural societies, although a majority are mainly pastoral, and tended to be characterized by a division of four or five social strata and an organized priestly group. They are also characterized by Industrial structures that show in advancing division of labour, general and local. Examples are the Teutonic peoples in the fifth century, Homeric Greeks, New Zealanders, Hottentots Dahomans and Ashantees.

3. Doubly Compound Societies:

Doubly compound societies were completely settled, were more integrated and a larger and more definite political structure, a religious hierarchy, a more or less rigid caste system and more complex division of labour. Furthermore, in such societies to a greater and lesser extent, custom has passed into positive law and religious observances have grown definite, rigid and complex. Towns and roads have become general, and considerable progress in knowledge and the arts has taken place.” Examples are thirteen-Century France, Eleventh Century England, the Spartan Confederacy, the ancient Peruvians and the Guatemalans.

4. Trebly Compound Societies:

It includes “the great civilized nations” such as the Assyrian Empire, the modern Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia. Spencer does not outline their traits in detail but points to their increased overall size, complexity, division of labour, popular density, integration and general cultural complexity.

II. Change from Military Society to Industrial Society:

According to Spencer, evolution proceeds from military society to industrial society. The type of social structure depends on the relation of a society to other societies in its significant characteristics.

The military society is characterized by compulsory co-operation while the industrial society is based on voluntary co-operation.
The military society has a centralized government whereas the industrial society has a decentralized government.
Military society has economic autonomy but it is not found in industrial society.
There is the domination of the state over all other social organizations in the military society whereas in the industrial society the functions of the states are very much limited.
Spencer’s theory of social evolution is a master key to the riddles of the universe. However, there are criticisms made by some of the social thinkers. The criticisms are highlighted below:

1. According to some social thinkers Herbert Spencer’s theory lacks practicability. It is not practical and realistic. Even today there are several tribes and aboriginals that do not show any sign of evolution.

2. It also lacks uniformity. It is not possible to have a uniform pattern of social evolution in all societies. Because the factors and circumstances responsible for evolution differ from one another.

3. Mere survival for existence is not enough for man. In human society qualities like sympathy, sacrifice, kindness, love etc. are also present. These are quite different from struggle for existence.

Summary

Archaeological evidences and remnants pointed that even the stone age humans settled in permanent communities and adopted complex economic and social systems thousands of years before agriculture was practiced. In a way, humans as social animals organized into various kinds of social groupings, such as nomadic bands, villages, cities, and countries, in which they work, trade, play, reproduce, and interact in many other ways. Subsequently, the patterns of human society differ from place to place and era to era and across cultures, making the social world a very complex and dynamic environment. There are archaeological evidences that our ancestors lived in groups and shared whatever prey they hunted or food they gathered. With passage of time, human societies have evolved from unsettled to settled, hunting and gathering to agrarian and from agrarian to industrial societies. There are many factors responsible for evolution of human societies, viz.; social evolution, biological evolution, socio-cultural evolution, evolution of technology, evolution of socio-cultural psychology. The first consideration of evolution of humans appeared in the Origin of Species (Darwin 1859/1958). After more than two decades of the theoretical appearance of human evolution, Darwin turned to the evolution of human societies.

Human behaviour is affected both by genetic inheritance and by experience. In addition to belonging to the social and cultural settings into which they are born, people voluntarily join groups based on shared occupations, beliefs, or interests. Membership in these groups influences how people think of themselves and how others think of them. These groups impose expectations and rules that make the behaviour of members more predictable and that enable each group to function smoothly and retain its identity. Affiliation with any social group, whether one joins it voluntarily or is born into it, brings some advantages of larger numbers: the potential for pooling resources, concerted effort, and identity and recognition.

Societies, like species, evolve in directions that are opened or constrained in part by internal forces such as technological developments or political traditions. The conditions of one generation limit and shape the range of possibilities open to the next. On the one hand, each new generation learns the cultural norms of the society and thus does not have to reinvent strategies for producing food, handling conflict, educating young people, governing, and so forth. The size of the human population, its concentration in particular places, and its pattern of growth are influenced by the physical setting and by many aspects of culture: economics, politics, technology, history, and religion. In response to economic concerns, national governments set very different policies—some to reduce population growth, some to increase it. Some religious groups also take a strong stand on population issues. In turn, social systems are influenced by population—its size, its rate of change, and its proportions of people with different characteristics such as age, sex, and language.

Spencer applied the concept of biological evolution in the cultural perspective and carried on to indicate that those cultures survive which are able to adjust with the changing circumstances. If a civilization is unable to make adjustment with the changing circumstances it caves in and gradually becomes extinct.

you can view video on Evolution of human society

References:

Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1996). Why culture is common, but cultural evolution is rare. Proc. Br.Acad. 88, 77–93.
Clutton-Brock, T. H. (2002). Breeding together: kin selection and mutualism in cooperative vertebrates. Science 296, 69–72. (doi:10.1126/science.296.5565.69)
Darwin, C. (1859/1958). The origin of species. New York, NY: The Modern Library.
Darwin, C. (1871). The Descent of Man.
Genesis 41:46-57. Prosperity and Famine. New International Version (NIV), Christian Holy Bible.
Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, 3 vols. (London: Williams & Norgate, 1876–1896), Vol. 1.
Steven, K William (1988). Life in the Stone Age: New Findings Point to Complex Societies. December 20, 1988.