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Alain Testart (Paris, 30 December 1945 – 2 September 2013) was a French social anthropologist, emeritus research director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris and member of the Laboratory for Social Anthropology at the Collège de France. He specialized in primitives societies (like those of the Australian Aborigines and the hunter-gatherers in general) and comparative anthropology. His research themes included: slavery, marriage arrangements, funeral practices, gift and exchange, typology of societies, the political, the evolution of the societies, and questions of interpretation in prehistoric archaeology. With his works Alain Testart argued for the autonomy of anthropology as a social science and, against the anti-evolutionism that has dominated social anthropology over the past century, for a sociologically founded evolutionism.〔An exhaustive discussion of the question of evolutionism in social anthropology can be found in Alain Testarts (article on the issue ) that appeared in the ''Revue Française de Sociologie'' Nr. 33, April–June 1992, pp. 155-187. Read also the last paragraph of this article.〕 With force of arguments he contested naturalist approaches of the evolution of the societies that draw their explanatory models from evolution in biology.〔See for instance the article “''Are the biological models useful for conceptualizing the evolution of the societies?''” in (Préhistoires méditerranéennes 2011/2 ).〕 Based on a critical review of the foundations of ethnology, in particular of the work of Lewis H. Morgan,〔A re-edition of Lewis H. Morgan’s Ancient Society (1877) was published in 1985 with a (preface by Alain Testart ) that can be obtained via the official website.〕 Alain Testart has attempted to renew an almost forgotten tradition in ethnological research, basing himself on the data acquired by a century of research in ethnography and prehistoric archaeology. In his synthetic work ''Prior to history. The evolution of societies, from Lascaux to Carnac'' (2012) he has explained his scientific approach in a systematic way, and has designed a surprising panorama on the prehistory of the societies, including those of the Indo-European ensemble. With this book Alain Testart obtained a late recognition from a broad audience for his work as a sociological researcher.〔Following an enthusiastic welcome in the newspaper ''Le Monde'' of 23 November 2012, a discussion of this book in the review ''Sciences Humaines'' (update of 23 December 2013) shows a continuing interest in the evolution of the societies.〕 After his death a circle of friends and former colleagues has taken up the edition of unpublished works.〔End of January 2014 the essay (The Amazon and the Kitchenmaid: Anthropology of the sexual division of labor ) was published by Gallimard in Paris.〕 The following article shortly presents the social-anthropological oeuvre of Alain Testart at the hand of three of his research themes: the anthropology of hunter-gatherers; concepts of comparative sociology, and the evolution of the societies. In the footnotes web links point towards abstracts, papers, articles in scientific reviews, book critiques by others, colloquia and ressources for further reference. An extract of his copious bibliography has also been included. ==An engineer in the social sciences== After graduating as an engineer from the ''École Nationale Supérieure des Mines'' in Paris,〔Higher National (engineering) School of Mine.〕 and after brief employment in an enterprise, Alain Testart began to study ethnology. In 1975 he received his doctorate with his thesis ''On the dualistic classifications in Australia: Essay on the evolution of social organization'' 〔1978 : Des classifications dualistes en Australie : Essai sur l'évolution de l'organisation sociale. Paris et Lille : Maison des Sciences de l'Homme & Lille III, 222 p. French Summary: http://www.alaintestart.com/class_dual_austra.htm〕 under the direction of Jacques Barrau. In 1982 he began working at the ''Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique'' (CNRS) and became, subsequently, a member of the team “Social appropriation of Nature” at the National Museum of Natural History, and of the Laboratory of Ethnology and Comparative Sociology at the Paris X – Nanterre University, where he carried out a number of educational assignments. Alain Testart was a member of the Laboratory for Social Anthropology at the ''Collège de France'' and an emeritus research directory at the CNRS. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alain Testart」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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