The guides to anthropological theories and approaches listed below have been prepared by graduate students of the university of alabama under the direction of dr. As always, !caveat retis viator! let the net traveller beware! note: authorship is arranged stratigraphically with the most recent author listed first ecological anthropology focuses upon the complex relations between people and their environment. Human populations have ongoing contact with and impact upon the land, climate, plant, and animal species in their vicinities, and these elements of their environment have reciprocal impacts on humans salzman and attwood 19. Ecological anthropology investigates the ways that a population shapes its environment and the subsequent manners in which these relations form the population's social, economic, and political life salzman and attwood 19. In a general sense, ecological anthropology attempts to provide a materialist explanation of human society and culture as products of adaptation to given environmental conditions seymour smith 198. In the origin of species 1859 , charles darwin presented a synthetic theory of evolution based on the idea of descent with modification.

In each generation, more individuals are produced than can survive because of limited resources , and competition between individuals arises. It is the environmental context that determines whether or not a trait is beneficial. Malthus pioneered demographic studies, arguing that human populations naturally tend to outstrip their food supply seymour smith 198. This circumstance leads to disease and hunger which eventually put a limit on the growth of the population seymour smith 198. Haekel coined our modern understanding of ecology in 1870, defining it as the study of the economy, of the household, of animal organisms.

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This includes the relationships of animals with the inorganic and organic environments, above all the beneficial and inimical relations darwin referred to as the conditions for the struggle of existence netting 1977:1. Therefore, an ecosystem see principal concepts consists of organisms acting in a bounded environment. As a reaction to darwin rsquo s theory, some anthropologists eventually turned to environmental determinism see principal concepts as a mechanism for explanation. The earliest attempts at environmental determinism mapped cultural features of human populations according to environmental information for example, correlations were drawn between natural features and human technologies milton 1997. The detailed ethnographic accounts of boas, malinowski, and others led to the realization that environmental determinism could not sufficiently account for observed realities, and a weaker form of determinism began to emerge milton 1997. At this time, julian steward coined the term cultural ecology see principal concepts.

He looked for the adaptive responses to similar environments that gave rise to cross cultural similarities netting 1997. Steward rsquo s theory centered around a culture core, which he defined as the constellation of features which are most closely related to subsistence activities and economic arrangements steward 195. By the 1960s and 1970s, cultural ecology and environmental determinism lost favor within anthropology. Ecological anthropologists formed new schools of thought, including the ecosystem model, ethnoecology, and historical ecology barfield 1998. Researchers hoped that ecological anthropology and the study of adaptations would provide explanations of customs and institutions salzman and attwood 19.

Ecological anthropologists believe that populations are not engaged with the total environment around them, but rather with a habitat consisting of certain selected aspects and local ecosystems kottak 199 4. Furthermore, each population has its own adaptations institutionalized in the culture of the group, especially in their technologies salzman and attwood 19. A field such as ecological anthropology is particularly relevant to contemporary concerns with the state of the general environment. Anthropological knowledge has the potential to inform and instruct humans about how to construct sustainable ways of life. Anthropology, especially when it has an environmental focus, also demonstrates the importance of preserving cultural diversity.

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Biological diversity is necessary for the adaptation and survival of all species culture diversity may serve a similar role for the human species because it is clearly one of our most important mechanisms of adaptation. In the 1950s, dissatisfaction with existing vague and rigid theories of cultural change stimulated the adoption of an ecological perspective. This new perspective considers the role of the physical environment in cultural change in a more sophisticated manner than environmental determinism see the work of julian steward and the cultural ecology web page at wanthro/eco.htm . Ecological anthropology is also a reaction to idealism, which is the idea that all objects in nature and experience are representations of the mind. Ecological anthropology inherently opposes the notion that ideas drive all human activities and existence. This particular field illustrates a turn toward the study of the material conditions of the environment, which have the potential to affect ideas.

Furthermore, steward was disillusioned with historical particularism and culture area approaches, and he subsequently emphasized environmental influences on culture and cultural evolution barfield 1998. Boas and his students representing historical particularism argued that cultures are unique and cannot be compared barfield 1991. In response, steward rsquo s methodological approach to multilinear evolution called for a detailed comparison of a small number of cultures that were at the same level of sociocultural integration and in similar environments, yet vastly separated geographically barfield 19. During the 1960s, a shift in focus occurred in ecological anthropology because of changing trends and interactions within the global system.