How did 19th-century cultural anthropologists study small-scale preindustrial societies?

During the 19th century, cultural anthropologists primarily studied small-scale, preindustrial societies through an approach often described as "armchair" anthropology. Rather than conducting direct, long-term fieldwork, the first generation of anthropologists typically relied on secondary accounts provided by locally based missionaries, colonial administrators, and military personnel.123

These researchers used the following methods and frameworks:

• Data Collection via Questionnaires: Metropolitan theorists issued questionnaires to individuals stationed in remote regions to gather ethnographic information on customs and social structures.2
• Comparative Frameworks: Theorists collated these reports to fit diverse societies into universal evolutionary sequences, such as the progression from "savagery" to "barbarism" and finally to "civilization".452
• Taxonomic Analysis: Influenced by developments in biology and archaeology, anthropologists created typologies to classify societies based on kinship, technology, and economic organization.53
• Evolutionary Interpretation: Most 19th-century scholars viewed existing indigenous societies as "fossilized" remnants of humanity's past, using them as illustrations of stages that Western Europe had supposedly already surpassed.65

This era was deeply intertwined with colonial expansion, and the pursuit of ethnographic knowledge was often driven by the need for social and political control over indigenous populations. It is important to recognize that the labeling of these societies as "savage" or "barbarous" was used to justify colonial policies, an approach that is ethically indefensible as it served to facilitate the forced assimilation and subjugation of indigenous peoples.3