Neo-evolutionism is a modern approach to the study of culture and society that emerged during the mid-twentieth century as a response to the limitations of classical evolutionism. While nineteenth-century evolutionists such as Lewis Henry Morgan and Edward B. Tylor proposed that all societies passed through the same fixed stages of development, neo-evolutionists rejected this unilinear model and argued that societies evolve along multiple paths depending on their environmental conditions, technological innovations, and historical experiences. Neo-evolutionism attempts to explain cultural change scientifically by emphasizing adaptation, energy use, technological progress, and ecological relationships. One of the most influential neo-evolutionists was Leslie A. White, who argued that culture develops primarily through improvements in technology. According to White, technology is the driving force of cultural evolution because it enables humans to harness greater amounts of energy from their environment. He formulated the idea that the degree of cultural development depends on the amount