ABSTRACT
The paradigm of evolution has long been synonymous with anthropology: it played a formative role in the discipline's nineteenth-century origins and regained prominence in the latter half of the twentieth century. Evolutionary ideas may have seemed commonsensical to Enlightenment thinkers, but they had been driven underground for decades by the time of Origin's publication. Most proponents of Social Darwinism reject the label itself as unsavory, but they show no such reticence about its modern-day incarnation – libertarianism. Darwin's view of the natural world as one of incessant and violent competition was very likely influenced by Spencer. The notion is that the first practitioners of the discipline were "armchair anthropologists" rather than fieldworkers. Morgan's evolutionary scheme was an ambitious effort to interrelate aspects of subsistence with kinship practices, and even material culture, such as hunting implements and house styles. The recognition of anthropology's distinct status also corresponded to the creation of the first academic programs in the English-speaking world.
