Trans-cultural diffusion

The diffusionism is a social science theory to explain cultural development and the similarity of two distant cultures. She walks among others assume that cultural innovations are rarely invented and then spread to other cultures and thus equality and similarity can be attributed to cultural contact.

Classic diffusionism

The diffusionism end of the 19th century, developed in response to the evolutionism and played until the 1920s, as an important strand of social theory and cultural anthropology an important role in the German Ethnology. In Anglophone space of this theory approach was referred to as German School.

As the founder of this view is said Friedrich Ratzel. Other representatives of this classic diffusionism were: Leo Frobenius as the founder of Kulturkreislehre ( first time 1898). Are mainly concerned with the evolving in the 1920s Vienna School of Ethnology with Wilhelm Schmidt and his student Wilhelm Koppers has to be mentioned, also the museum ethnologists Bernhard anchor man, Fritz Graebner, William Halse Rivers and Clark Wissler. The Vienna School used the terms " primitive culture ", " primary culture " and " secondary culture ", where the primitive culture is the most valuable. The " civilized nations " were considered in the comparison, as degenerate.

Grafton Elliot Smith and William James Perry (1887-1949) represented a " heliocentric " diffusionism who saw ancient Egypt as the cradle of human culture. Theories that assume that it is possible all the cultural and technical innovations derived from a single starting point, also referred to as Hyperdiffusionismus. Mostly translated diffusionists but they require no singular primitive culture, but only a limited number of cultural centers.

A prominent representative of diffusionism in the Archäoliogie was Gustaf was Kossinna whose siedlungsarchäologischer tried the expansion process and the migration of Indo-Europeans trace.

The diffusionists saw cultural innovations as relatively rare phenomena. They appreciated the ingenuity of man and the influence of environmental factors on cultural practices as a generally rather low. The greatest cultural achievements they wrote - quite consistent with the background of the cult of the genius of this time and ideas of the superiority of certain races - a few creative peoples. For the reconstruction of mankind and civilization history they resorted to spatial patterns of explanation. "From the dissemination of cultural elements in the room it was hoped that conclusions about the geographical movements in time and so the history of nations. " The transmission of cultural elements or phenomena happened according to this theory by migrations, trade and travel contacts, through proselytizing or by conquest by a foreign people. Often was the extreme diffusionism - this also applies to some successor Friedrich Ratzel - associated with racist or fundamentalist Christian implications, as it tended to " globalization of the self " and to the Western ( or later the U.S. ) culture as Zivilsationsbringer against the " persisting " non-European societies to absolutise.

The American anthropologist Roland Burrage Dixon has systematically studied the writings of the early diffusionists in his work The Building of Culture (1928 ).

Modern diffusionism

The modern diffusionism are a number of heterogeneous theories associated with the no longer primarily the expansion of dominant cultures by conquest or conquest, but the contact and interaction previously isolated cultures over large areas - for example, by the crossing of the Pacific - across great importance as driving force of cultural development in the eating. Prominent representatives are Thor Heyerdahl and Dominique Görlitz. Moderate diffusionist theories represented Vere Gordon Childe, the first of the theories Kossinna followed, but then criticized because of its racist implications, and the internal dynamics of development and differentiation of early societies attributed a greater importance in comparison to hiking and asymmetrical cultural contacts. Stages of development of human culture were no physical realities, but spiritual contexts or organizational structures, which Essentials you need to collect for him. In contrast to linear- racist theories of evolution, he used the concept of the Neolithic and urban revolution.

Opposite poles

In contrast to diffusionism are the cultural evolutionism and memetics. A middle position between diffusionist and evolutionist theories represents the concept of Contact Innovation at the boundary line between two cultures, for example, in linguistics and archeology plays a role. This cross-cultural differences act as barriers to the diffusion on the one hand, but on the other hand carry the Inventions or pace of innovation at the boundaries between cultures and bring forth emergent properties.

Diffusionism in other areas of science

During the diffusionism in its original disciplines ( anthropology or ethnology, archeology and cultural geography ), a still low level of acceptance enjoys - and is sometimes downright taboo -, has become the preoccupation with cultural diffusion processes, especially with the spread of innovations in adjacent developed specialized sciences to a very obvious subject of research.

These disciplines include, inter alia, agricultural economics and rural sociology, economic geography, history, education and political science. Apart from the history of science involves research in disciplines said the consideration of societies from the point a, as they can be so influenced, to innovate, and the prediction of the results of such innovations.