Researches Into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization

Edward Burnett Tylor, an English anthropologist, was a self-taught Victorian liberal who, in effect, became the founder of British anthropology. He is famous for the first scientific definition of culture---that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." He developed both the concept of cultural survival and a theory of animism, which he believed to be religion in its minimal, most primitive, and therefore broadest form. From 1883 to 1909, Tylor was connected with Oxford University and its University Museum.