Final answer:
Early anthropologists characterized Western cultures as superior and advanced within the discredited framework of cultural evolutionism, which erroneously viewed cultural development as a unilineal process.
Step-by-step explanation:
In early evolutionary frameworks of cultural variation, anthropologists described Western cultures as superior and advanced. This characterization was part of a broader trend known as cultural evolutionism. Scholars such as British anthropologist Edward Tylor and American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan suggested that cultures progressed through stages from 'savagery' to 'barbarism' to 'civilization', with Western societies positioned at the peak of this progression, embodying the most complex and developed forms of culture. This perspective was heavily influenced by ethnocentric biases and the erroneous belief in a unilineal cultural evolution, wherein all societies were thought to follow the same developmental path. These views have since been discredited in anthropology, recognizing the unique and dynamic nature of each culture's evolutionary path, largely influenced by historical particularism and the constant interactions and exchanges among different cultures.