Darwin's concept of evolution was applied to the issues of cultural development and used to create "stage theories of socio-cultural development" according to the University of Alabama. Stage theories argue that every culture will develop in stages along a predetermined line of social advancement, at it's own rate. In short, the level of development (plus future and past social achievements of a culture) can be determined according to the place a particular culture occupies on a scale of cultural evolution. With social evolution, much like Darwin's theory of evolution, once you have determined a society's place on this evolutional scale, it's entire past can be reconstructed. Social evolution theories are heavily criticized as oversimplification of cultural evolution and have been blamed for encouraging racist beliefs because some social evolutionists claim a culture's rate of advancement through the scale could be based upon the intelligence of members of that civilization.
Historicism is a theory of social and cultural development that attempts to explain cultural changes and evolution of societal thinking. The University of Alabama states there are two separate forms of historicism: diffusionism and historical particularism. Regionally, the theory of historicism varied among it's students. In Great Britian, diffusionists claimed that all of culture and civilization as a whole was developed only once in history: in ancient Egypt. British diffusionists argue that all cultures in the world share a common origin, and that worldwide cultural development is actually a reaction of native cultures to diffusion of Egyptian culture. The University of Alabama states that this theory did not last very long among anthropologists.
The German anthropologist Fritz Graebner developed a theory of culture circles in an attempt to account for social and cultural evolution. Graebner's theory said that culture traits developed in just a few key areas of the world. These culture traits of various civilizations then diffused out to other cultures in geographically concentric circles. Encyclopedia Britannica states that Graebner called this theory Kulturkreise, and this concept formed the basis for the culture-historical school of ethnology in Europe.
Franz Boas developed the concept of historical particularism. According to Boas theory, complete ethnographic studies needed to be performed, in great detail, of every single individual culture in existence to really understand the distribution of culture traits and to get a glimpse of culture change in action. Boas focused on meticulous data collection methods and organization of data on all aspects of many different societies. The University of Alabama states that in short, Boas theory says only after after information on the detailed particulars of many different cultures had been gathered could any accurate generalizations about cultural development be made.