The Labour Theory of Culture: A Re-examination of Engels's Theory of Human Origins

133 Pages·2009·5.441 MB·English

by  Charles Woolfson

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS:

POLITICAL SCIENCE

THE LABOUR THEORY

OF CULTURE
THE LABOUR THEORY
OF CULTURE
A Re-examination of Engels’s Theory of
Human Origins
By
CHARLES WOOLFSON
Volume 42
First published 1982
This edition first published in 2010
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USAand Canada
by Routledge
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©1982 Charles Woolfson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 10: 0-415-49111-8 (Set)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-49111-2 (Set)
ISBN 10: 0-415-55583-3 (Volume 42)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-55583-8 (Volume 42)
Publisher’s Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of
this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original
copies may be apparent.
Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and
would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable
to trace.
The labour
theory of
culture
a re-examination of
Engels's theory of
human origins
Charles W oolfson
Department ifS ocial and Economic Research
University ifGlasgow
Routledge & Kegan Paul
London, Boston and Henley
First published in 1982
o/ Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
39 Store Street, London WC 1E 7DD,
9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA and
Broadway House, Newtown Road,
Hen ley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1E N
Photoset in 10/12 point Baskerville o/
Saildean Limited, Surrey
and printed in Great Britain l!J
Ebenezer Baylis & Son Ltd, Worcester
@ Charles W oolfson, 1982
No part of this book may be reproduced in
any jo1m without permission .from the
publisher, except for the quotation of brief
passages in criticism
Library ofCongress Cataloging in Publication Data
Wooljson, Charles, 1946-
The labour theory ofc ulture.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Communz~~m and anthropology. 2. Human evolution. 3. Labor and laboring
classes-History. 4. Engels, Friedrich, 1820-1895-Anthropology. I. Title.
HX550.A56W66 306 81-19960
ISBN 0-7100-0997-6 AACR2
For John Foster and William Coyle
Contents
Acknowledgments
Vlll
Introduction 1
1 Engels and human origins 5
2 The fossil record 11
3 Hunting and gathering 23
4 Primate tool-use and tool-making 34
5 Primate communication and culture 44
6 Theories of language origins 55
7 Labour and culture 67
Conclusion 79
Appendix: diagram of the interconnected processes
of hominisation through labour 81
Notes 82
Bibliography 104
Name index 117
Subject index 119
Acknowledgments
The following people provided helpful comments and suggestions:
David Hamilton, Bridget Fowler, Barbara Littlewood,John Hoff
man,Jeffrey Weeks, Henry Mins and Bruce Trigger. Kathleen
Clark typed and retyped more times than she probably cares to
remember.
Despite the inevitable selectivity in this brief text, the writer
sincerely hopes that he has not misrepresented the views of those
whose work has been cited.
Vlll
Introduction
What is surprising, given the concern of Marxist theory with the
issue of human development, is the almost total neglect by Western
Marxists of recent advances in archaeology, palaeontology, linguis
tics and such related fields as primatology and anthropology, all of
which have raised new and important questions concerning the very
origins and nature of the human species.1 Despite an increasing
penetration of Marxist ideas in some quarters, little has been said by
Marxists about the emergence of early human beings since Engels
attempted to outline the unique path of progressive evolutionary
advance towards humankind from our anthropoid ancestors in a
brief unfinished essay, written in 1876, entitled 'The Part Played by
Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man'.2 Until very recently,
only a handful of scholars have attempted to pursue a materialist
interpretation of human development of the kind advanced by
Engels.3 Yet Engels's essay raises an issue central to the whole
premises of Marxist theory, namely the formative role of labour in
human development and the genesis of human culture.
Nowadays the work of Engels, when not simply ignored, is
otherwise subjected to vigorous attack.4 Presumably this is intended
in part to prove yet again that all the blame for the dogmatic and
mechanistic 'errors' of Marxism should be laid at the door of Marx's
co-worker and not at that of the 'great man' himself. Thus rid of the
ballast of Engels, Marxist theory can float even higher in the rarified
atmosphere of theoreticism. It is time, however, to come down to
earth- and in the most literal sense. In the last two decades exciting
evidence concerning the birth of humanity has been dug out of the
soil and rock faces of Europe, Africa and Asia. Moreover, in
scientific laboratories and in the field, experiments and observations
of animal behaviour, including that of our nearest primate relatives,
have revealed wholly unexpected patterns of behaviour with
1