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Home/Anthropology/Mains PYQ/2018/Paper I/Anthropological Theories
UPSC MainsAnthropology Optional Paper I 2018 10 Marks Model Answer Available

Gordon Childe’s Theory of Cultural Evolution — 2018 Paper I

Question · 2018 · Paper I · 10 Marks

Gordon Childe's Theory of Cultural Evolution

Model Answer

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Approach

  • Demand of Question: Explain V. Gordon Childe’s materialist interpretation of long-term cultural evolution.
  • Structuring the Response: Present the Neolithic and Urban Revolutions as major evolutionary transformations and identify their causes and consequences.
  • Key Dimensions to Cover: Childe, Neolithic Revolution, Urban Revolution, food production, surplus, specialization, cities and material conditions.

Model Answer

Introduction: V. Gordon Childe interpreted cultural evolution through major transformations in technology, economy and social organization. Rather than viewing evolution as simple progress, he emphasized how changes in the mode of subsistence and productive forces transformed society.

  1. Neolithic Revolution: In Man Makes Himself (1936), Childe described the transition from food gathering to food production through:
  • plant domestication;
  • animal domestication;
  • sedentary settlement;
  • pottery and related technologies.

Thus:

Domestication → Food production → Sedentism → Population growth

This transformation created permanent village communities and greater control over food supply.

  1. Urban Revolution: Agricultural surplus later enabled:
  • occupational specialization;
  • full-time craftsmen;
  • long-distance trade;
  • social stratification;
  • monumental construction;
  • writing and administration.

Hence:

Surplus → Specialization → Stratification → Urban civilization

Childe combined archaeological evidence with a broadly materialist and evolutionary approach, while also recognizing diffusion and interaction among cultures.

Criticism: The term “revolution” can exaggerate the speed and uniformity of changes that were often gradual and regionally diverse.

Conclusion: Childe’s major contribution was to explain cultural evolution through the relationship between technology, economy, surplus and increasing social complexity.

2026 How is the theory of structuralism helpful in understanding the concepts of caste and gender? 2026 Critically discuss how culture determines human behaviour in the light of Leslie White's theory. 2026 Compare Edmund Leach's structuralism with interpretive anthropology of Clifford Geertz. 2026 Discuss, with appropriate examples, how basic personality types may lead towards building up of national character.

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