ANTH 2160 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Passive Obedience, Comparative Linguistics, Orthogenesis
23 Feb 2016
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Ethnological research is based on the concept of migration and dissemination rather than upon that of evolution. Another extreme form of ethnographic research is denying the existence of a general evolutionary scheme which would represent the history of the cultural development. In this sense modern investigation takes up anew gerland"s theory o the persistence of a number of cultural traits which were developed in one center and carried by man in his migrations fro continent to continent. In order to understand history, it is necessary to know not only how things are but how they came to be. Comparative philology: the method is based on the comparison of static phenomena combined with the study of distribution. We can never hope to obtain incontrovertible data relation to the chronological sequence of events, but certain general broad outlines can be a ascertained with a high degree of probability, even of certainty.
