Sociocultural evolution
In the unilineal evolution model at left, all cultures progress through set stages, while in the multilinealevolution model at right, distinctive culture histories are emphasized.
Sociocultural evolution(ism)
is an umbrella term for theories of
cultural evolution
and social evolution,describing how cultures and societies have developed over time. Although such theories typically provide models for understanding the relationship between technologies, social structure, the values of a society,and how and why they change with time, they vary as to the extent to which they describe specific mechanisms of variation and social change.
Most 19th century and some 20th century approaches aimed to provide models for the evolution of humankind as a whole, arguing that different societies are at different stages of social development. At present this thread is continued to some extent within the World System approach. Many of the more recent 20th-century approaches focus on changes specific to individual societies and reject the idea of directional change, or social progress. Most archaeologists and cultural anthropologists work within the framework of modern theories of socio cultural evolution. Modern approaches to socio cultural evolution include revolutionist, sociology, theory of modernization and theory of postindustrial society.