Final answer:
The British anthropologist Edward Tylor proposed that human culture historically progressed from savagery through barbarism to civilization. His unilineal evolution theory has been influential but critiqued in anthropology.
Step-by-step explanation:
The British anthropologist Edward Tylor viewed human culture as progressing historically from savagery to barbarism to civilization. Tylor's concept of cultural evolution suggested that human development progressed through these three stages in a unilineal fashion, with each stage representing a complexity of technology and social organization. His theory, which posits a linear progression of cultural sophistication, has been influential but also critiqued and largely abandoned in favor of more nuanced understandings of cultural development.
Similarly, the American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan developed an even more detailed version of this scheme, focusing on technology as the fundamental driver in the progression from savagery and barbarism to civilization. However, Morgan's ethnocentric approach has been challenged by later anthropologists, such as Franz Boas, who argued that each culture has its unique historical trajectory and evolves not in isolation but through interaction with other cultures.