American neo-evolutionary anthropologist; student of Leslie Whyte and Julian Steward at Columbia University (Ph.D. 1951). Service, who did field research among Native Americans in Paraguay, Mexico and Arizona, made important contributions to the development of a systematic and modernized theory of social evolution (in part in collaboration with his co-student at Columbia, Marshall Sahlins). His studies of the economy and ecological adaptation of hunters (The Hunters, 1966) and his work on the origins of the state (Origins of the State and Civilization, 1975) are of particular importance.