约翰逊和厄尔的人类社会演进学说

Evolutionary Theory of Allen W.Johnson and Timothy Earle

在塞维斯与弗里德的人类社会演进理论发表之后 ,国际学术界进一步做了大量的田野调查与文化比较研究工作 ,其中引人注目的有约翰逊和厄尔的学说。本文介绍了他们人类社会演进理论的基本内容 ,着重分析了他们酋邦的定义 ,指出了其中在权力结构描述方面的不足 ,并使用中国材料予以了证明。本文结论是 ,他们的学说虽然并未对前人的理论有什么根本性的突破 ,但还是做出了一些重要的修订 ,这对于人类社会演进理论的深化研究 ,尤其是当前中国文明与国家起源的研究 ,具有着不可忽视的参考意义。

The Evolution of Human Societies : From Foraging Group to Agrarian State (Stanford:Stanford University Press,1987)by Allen W.Johnson and Timothy Earle is one of the most important studies of the evolutionists since 1960s.Based on the patterns of Elman R.Service and Morton H.Fried,Johnson and Earle have made significant revisions and supplements that greatly polish up the evolutionary theory and make it more elaborate. However,a further discussion is needed.One of them is their definition of chiefdom on the chief's power,which is not consistent and dies not conform to all the ethnographic data,for example,the data of YI in the Liangshan of Sichuan Province of China.