The English anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) was concerned with theories of cultural evolution and diffusion, and he advanced influential theories regarding the origins of magic and religion.

Edward B. Tylor was born in London into a prosperous Quaker family. He was privately educated and because of ill health was excused from entering the family business. In 1855 he traveled to Latin America and there met a fellow English Quaker and amateur antiquarian, Henry Christy; they toured Mexico in search of ancient artifacts. On his return to England, Tylor married Anna Fox in 1858 and settled into a comfortable private existence supported by his independent means.

In 1861 Tylor published Anahuac, in which he speculated on Mexico's ancient past. He joined the Royal Anthropological Society and independently studied primitive societies, publishing Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization (1865) and his most famous study, Primitive Culture...