Elman Service
| Elman Service | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 18, 1915 Tecumseh, Michigan |
| Died | November 14, 1996 (aged 81) Santa Barbara, California |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | cultural anthropologist |
| Alma mater |
Columbia University University of Michigan |
Elman Rogers Service (1915–1996) was an American cultural anthropologist.
He was born on May 18, 1915 in Tecumseh, Michigan and died on November 14, 1996 in Santa Barbara, California. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1941 from the University of Michigan. He earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1951 and taught there from 1949 to 1953. From there, Service went back to the University of Michigan to teach from 1953 until 1969. He later taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1969 to 1985, when he retired.
During his time studying at the University of Michigan, Service joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain to fight Francisco Franco. He also fought in World War II for the United States Army.
Elman Service researched Latin American Indian ethnology, cultural evolution, and theory and method in ethnology. He studied cultural evolution in Paraguay and studied cultures in Latin America and the Caribbean. These studies led to his theories about social systems and the rise of the state as a system of political organization.
He was the Secretary-Treasurer of the American Ethnological Society and a member of the American Anthropological Association.
Elman Service defined four classifications of the stages of social evolution which are also the four levels of political organizations: band, tribe, chiefdom, and state.
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