Some subjects or disciplines emerge in a slow and complicated way, and it is not possible to say exactly when or where they originated. But this is not so in social anthropology as taught and practised in the intellectual sterling zone, in what had been the British Empire and what continues to be, in the intellectual and academic spheres, its zone of influence. The United States and the continent of Europe are a different matter. This, however, does not affect our argument, though the relation to Eastern Europe plays its part in the story.

Within the British Empire and its successor states (and more important perhaps: its successor universities), the beginning of it all is clear, distinct and visible. There are traditional and founded religions, traditional and founded states, and, evidently, traditional and founded disciplines. Social anthropology is a founded discipline with a clear point of origin, from which all, or very nearly all, then follows. It has a Founder who set it up.

The baseline of social anthropology is the replacement of Sir James Frazer by Bronislaw Malinowski as the paradigmatic anthropologist. It is all a little like the foundation of the English state itself. The English kingdom effectively begins with William the Conqueror. Before him there is a kind of haze, in which nebulous figures with funny names such as Ethelred appear, without real continuity or any clear order, or much conviction. The status of figures such as Alfred or Arthur – fact or romance? – is none too clear.