INTRODUCTION
DURING the present century many new approaches to the
problems of social anthropology have developed. The old
method of constructing a history of human culture based
on bits of evidence, torn out of their natural contacts, and
collected from all times and all parts of the world, has
lost much of its hold. It was followed by a period of pains-
taking attempts at reconstruction of historical connections
based on studies of distribution of special features and
supplemented by archæological evidence. Wider and
wider areas were looked upon from this viewpoint. At-
tempts were made to establish firm connections between
various cultural features and these were used to establish
wider historical connections. The possibility of independ-
ent development of analogous cultural features which is a
postulate of a general history of culture has been denied
or at least consigned to an inconsequential rôle. Both the
evolutionary method and the analysis of independent
local cultures were devoted to unraveling the sequences
of cultural forms. While by means of the former it was
hoped to build up a unified picture of the history of cul-
ture and civilization, the adherents of the latter methods,
at least among its more conservative adherents, saw each
culture as a single unit and as an individual historical
problem.
Under the influence of the intensive analysis of cultures
the indispensable collection of facts relating to cultural
forms has received a strong stimulus. The material so
collected gave us information on social life, as though it
consisted of strictly separated categories, such as economic
life, technology, art, social organization, religion, and the