unilineal evolution
noun1
Anthropology, Human sciences, Sciences, Social science, Social sciences Usually The theory, now considered obsolete, that societies evolve in a single direction toward complexity, progress, and civilization.
- Of course, when we speak in broadly evolutionary terms, to do so need not imply the simplistic notion of unilineal evolution, with the suggestion that human developments always follow the same sequential pattern.2008, Colin Renfrew, Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind, Modern Library, →ISBN, page 89: