Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- One Hunter-Gatherers and Anthropology
- Two Environment, Evolution, and Anthropological Theory
- Three Foraging and Subsistence
- Four Mobility
- Five Technology
- Six Sharing, Exchange, and Land Tenure
- Seven Group Size and Demography
- Eight Men, Women, and Foraging
- Nine Nonegalitarian Hunter-Gatherers
- Ten Hunter-Gatherers and Prehistory
- Notes
- References
- Index
Two - Environment, Evolution, and Anthropological Theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- One Hunter-Gatherers and Anthropology
- Two Environment, Evolution, and Anthropological Theory
- Three Foraging and Subsistence
- Four Mobility
- Five Technology
- Six Sharing, Exchange, and Land Tenure
- Seven Group Size and Demography
- Eight Men, Women, and Foraging
- Nine Nonegalitarian Hunter-Gatherers
- Ten Hunter-Gatherers and Prehistory
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
[W]hile it is true that cultures are rooted in nature…they are no more produced by that nature than a plant.
Anthropologist (Kroeber 1939: 1)We hate the lions, leopards, and spotted hyenas because they will hurt us. The antelope hate us because they see our fires at night and N!adima [God] has told them that these fires are to cook them.
G/wi man (Silberbauer 1981a: 63)There seems little room for argument with Alfred Kroeber's assertion that a society comes from more than its natural environment. Yet we also cannot deny the ecological realities that the G/wi acknowledge. These two facts drive anthropology's investigation into the relationship between human society and the environment. Although relating the environment to cultural diversity in a consistent theoretical fashion is a daunting task, anthropology has made some gains by uniting an ecological with an evolutionary perspective in a field known as human behavioral ecology. We will consider this theoretical paradigm here, but let's first place it into its historical context by considering two earlier paradigms that privileged the role of the environment – the culture area concept and cultural ecology – since some of the research and data discussed in this book were undertaken within them.
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- The Lifeways of Hunter-GatherersThe Foraging Spectrum, pp. 24 - 39Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013
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