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Early Anthropological Theory Of Natural Selection

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Some of the earliest anthropological theorists were influenced by Darwinian evolution, which was driven by the concept of natural selection. Many early anthropological theories were shaped by the idea that species adapt, inherit, and strengthen useful traits, and the most adaptive have the greatest reproductive success. Early anthropologists made ethnocentric generalizations about cultures based on the thought that evolutionary laws governed culture. They believed cultures and races were a certain way based on how adaptive they thought they were. They did not use a cultural relativism approach when making a theory about a culture, they believed a culture was inferior and less capable if they were not as developed. The evolutionary view many
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