Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
unilineal evolution en · NOUN
Meanings
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(uncountable, 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:
Forms
Synonyms
unilinear evolution