原始文化（Primitive culture）是早期的人类学所常使用的一个名词，用来描述一个文化缺乏经济发展和现代性的表现，这些包括如文本、进步的技术和较密集的人口等。早期大多由是由欧洲人在殖民探险的过程中，描述非西方社会的文化之用。 原始文化一词，亦为早期十九世纪有「人类学之父」之称的人类学家泰勒的著名著作的书名。

In older anthropology texts and discussions, the term "primitive culture" refers to a society believed to lack cultural, technological, or economic sophistication or development. For instance, a culture that lacks a written language might be considered less culturally sophisticated than cultures with writing systems; or a hunter-gatherer society might be considered less developed than an industrial capitalist society. While becoming less politically correct, some Western authors, such as anthropologists and historians, used it to describe pre-industrial indigenous cultures. Historically, assigning "primitive" to other people has been used to justify conquering them.