Evolution

A theory of biology about the gradual or rapid change of the form of living organisms throughout time that reflects adaptive change; it is the theory that all forms of life derive from a process of change via natural selection. Its great exponent was Charles Darwin, whose "The Origin of Species" appeared in 1859. It had an immediate impact on prehistory and the question of the antiquity of man. The Darwinian idea - of species generally over-reproducing themselves and only the better-fitted surviving to pass on their superior adaptation to the next generation - has been modified and amplified in the 20th century by new knowledge of genetics and especially of mutation and re-combination of genes. The newer view is often called Neo-Darwinism. Darwin's work laid the foundations for the study of artifact typology pioneered by such scholars as Pitt-Rivers and Montelius. The idea that the animals and plants of today originated from ancestors of a different kind goes back at least to early Greek philosophers.

The idea that the animals and plants of today originated from ancestors of a different kind goes back at least to early Greek philosophers, but it was Charles Darwin who provided the first satisfactory account of a mechanism .which would cause this to happen. The Origin of Species"was published in 1859, the year after Darwin and Alfred Wallace had briefly presented the theory of evolution by Natural Selection, and it had an immediate impact on prehistory and the question of the antiquity of man (see human evolution). The Darwinian idea — of species generally over-reproducing themselves and only the better-fitted surviving to pass on their superior adaptation to the next generation — has been modified and amplified in the 20th century by new knowledge of genetics, and especially of mutation and re-combination of genes. The newer view is often called Neo-Darwinism.