Rohrbacher, Peter: Thurnwalds Beitrag zu Theorien ethnischer Schichtung und Staatsbildung. Sociologus. Journal for Social Anthropology 74 (2024) 1: 39–70.
https://doi.org/10.3790/soc.2025.1469103 (19.12.2025)
Abstract:
This study examines Thurnwald’s contribution to theories of ethnic stratification and early state formation. The framework for the analysis of his work is a four-part phase con¬cept for the period from 1898 to 1935, which follows and traces Thurnwald’s thinking over three decades. Changes and constants are elaborated. Thurnwald’s early studies on An¬cient Egyptology and Ancient Oriental Studies serve as the starting point of the investiga¬tion, providing an important theoretical frame of reference for his field research in Ger¬man New Guinea (1906 – 1909, 1912 – 1915). Under the influence of these field experienc¬es, he revised his original concepts. Thurnwald rejected the theory of conquest in the sense of Gumplowicz, Ratzel, Ratzenhofer and Oppenheimer, but adhered to the thesis that so¬cial and ethnic stratification could only be explained by exogenous factors such as migra¬tion. The final section is devoted to Thurnwald’s “structural types”, which interpret the processes of immigration and superimposition from the perspective of his ethnosociolog¬ical approach. The study concludes with an overall assessment of his five-volume magnum opus Die menschliche Gesellschaft (1931 – 1935).
Keywords: stratification, conquest and invasion theory, early state formation, sifting, ethnosociology