High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Ancient Society is a book by the United States ethnologist Lewis H. Morgan and published in 1877. In this book, Morgan develops his theory of the three stages of human progress, i.e., from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization. Contemporary European social theorists such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were influenced by Morgan`s work on social structure and material culture, as shown by Engels` The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884).