The Ecological Approach in Anthropology

Abstract

The anthropological view of ecology stresses the adaptive and exploitative relations, through the agency of technology, of the human group to its habitat, and the demographic and sociocultural consequences of those relations. Descriptive ethnographies and regional archeological histories, considerations of the interplay between the cultural and physical nature of man, comparative studies of social organization, and inquiries into sociocultural change and levels of development have proceeded from this perspective, sharpening and modifying anthropological aims and methods in the process of identifying the nature and action of ecological determinants.