村落和社会进化

Communities and Social Evolution

20世纪90年代以来，西方社会进化理论，尤其是美国人类学家塞维斯（ElmanService）的“游团-部落-酋邦-国家”四阶段论，逐渐进入我国，为我国文明与国家起源的探讨提供了新的研究思路。不过，我国学者只是引介或者使用理论，对于理论本身鲜有批判和修正。

The four-stage scheme ＂Band-Tribe-Chiefdom-State＂ put forth by Elman Service in the 1960s is a milestone in the history of Western anthropology, and a theoretical ground for the discussion of the origin of the Chinese civilization. Built on the fast-accumulating ethnographic data since the early 20th century, it provides a better scheme for describing the general process of social evolution. In the subsequent forty years it was widely accepted, but also subject to sharp critiques. In our opinion, the scheme is flawed in only seeing social harmony while denying social conflict; it is also flawed in seeing individuals or chiefs at the expense of group or community. As a remedy, we integrate the Marxist production relation concept, highlight the role of community, and gather more ethnographic data, so as to re-extrapolate Service＇ s scheme. Moreover, we propose that the transition from the egalitarian tribal society to the stratified chiefdom society is actually a process in which a tribe and its allies conquers other communities, annexing their land, and transforming both parties into the ruling and ruled classes.