Unilinear evolutionary theory is a now largely outdated theory of social change that was prominent in nineteenth-century anthropology and sociology, which posited that all societies follow the same single, linear path of development through a fixed and predetermined sequence of successive stages of evolution, inevitably progressing from simple, so-called "primitive" forms to more complex, "advanced," and "civilised" stages, often with Western industrialised societies seen as the pinnacle of this evolutionary process. This theory suggested that different societies were simply at different points along this universal evolutionary trajectory. Unilinear evolutionary theories have been widely criticised for their ethnocentric biases, their lack of empirical support, and their failure to account for the diversity of historical and cultural development across different societies, often imposing a Western-centric view of progress onto other cultures. Contemporary sociological perspectives on social change, such as multilinear evolutionary theory, recognise that societies can change in various ways and follow diverse paths of development, influenced by their unique historical, cultural, and environmental contexts, without necessarily converging on a single end point.