Cultural evolutionists concluded that the study of "savage" and "primitive" cultures would lead to an understanding of their own cultural past. The discipline of anthropology was born.

The problem of ethnocentrism: the theory was developed by educated, upper-class Englishmen; not surprisingly, they perceived their (sub)culture to be the "natural" endpoint of evolution.

Frazer's multi-volume work, The Golden Bough, was a milestone in cultural evolutionary studies. Although mythologists have long recognized some of the weaknesses of his work, he is frequently referred to more or less uncritically by nonspecialists.

His work established the standard evolutionary view: savagery is characterized by magic; primitivism, by religion; and, civilization by science. The age of savagery is the mythopoeic age. Also, for Frazer, most if not all myth arises from ritual actions.

From the concept of a mythopoeic age of savagery, Lang concluded that myths among primitive cultures such as the ancient Greeks, who practiced religion, were survivals. They now served as "primitive science" and were often etiological in nature. As survivals, they were often garbled and misunderstood; it was up to the modern scholar to reconstruct the "true" meaning of the myth.