since the Enlightenment (Trigger 1989: ch. 3). Darwin had been particularly
inspired by Sir Charles Lyell (1797–1875), whose bookPrinciples of Geology
(published in two volumes in 1830 and 1832) he had taken with him on his
scientiWc expedition around the world on the HMS Beagle. Lyell had chal-
lenged the geological understanding of the world, denying the authority of the
Old Testament Genesis as a historical source. Instead, he proposed that the
geological past should best be understood in terms of gradual natural pro-
cesses. As discussed in Chapter 12 (page 356), Lyell, however, did not follow
the same logic with regard to living species which he thought to have been
Wxed. Darwin would be the scholar to put forward the theory regarding
evolution of species, including humans. The key distinction between Darwin
and some of his contemporaries who were proposing similar ideas was the
mechanism by which change occurred: natural selection. Despite being Dar-
win’s mentor, Lyell refused to support him in print, as became apparent in his
bookThe Antiquity of Man(1863). Darwin would later publishThe Descent of
Man and Selection in Relation to Sex(1871). Darwinian evolutionary theory
produced heated debate and brought with it a new way of scientiWc reasoning.
Although not everybody took on board the implications of Darwin’s theor-
ies—the arbitrary character of natural selection—they persuaded many to
accept one of the basic evolutionist tenets, that of the transformation of
species through time. In contrast to Darwin, many people related changes
in animals to those taking place in the environment, a theory that had been
proposed half a century earlier by Jean-Baptiste de Lamark (1809). Lamark’s
proposition that qualities acquired or learned by an organism during its
lifetime could be passed on to its oVspring would ultimately be proved
wrong, but at this time it was widely accepted.
As seen in the case of Darwin and Lyell, natural scientists’ work on the
evolution of geological strata, fauna andXora took them closer to anthropo-
logists and prehistoric archaeologists to the extent that the boundaries of
these still emerging disciplines became blurred. In addition, all of these
scientists shared a range of interests with another newly emerging discipline,
geography. In today’s literature, it is not uncommon toWnd someone intro-
duced as a geographer described as an anthropologist elsewhere. Geographer
or anthropologist, their research could have focused on the study of past
remains and historical origins, something that under current disciplinary
boundaries would fall under theWeld of archaeology. This interconnection
between prehistoric archaeology and the natural sciences was institutional-
ized as cartographers, geologists, and archaeologists fused in institutions
dealing with the elaboration of maps, such as the Ordnance and Geological
Surveys and Commissions. In the universities, prehistoric archaeology be-
came part of the curriculum in Science faculties together with anthropology,
Evolutionism and Positivism 387