This book introduces students to cultural anthropology with an emphasis on environmental and evolutionary approaches, focusing on how humans adapt to their environment and how the environment shapes culture. It shows how cultures evolve within the context of people’s strategies for surviving and thriving in their environments.This approach is widely used among scholars as a cross-disciplinary tool that rewards students with valuable insights into contemporary developments. Drawing on anthropological case studies, the authors address immediate human concerns such as the costs and consequences of human energy requirements, environmental change and degradation, population pressure, social and economic equity, and planned and unplanned change. Impacts of increasingly rapid climatic change on equitable access to resources and issues of human rights are discussed throughout. Towards the end of the book the student is drawn into a challenging thought experiment addressing the possible impacts of climatic warming on Middle America in the year 2040.
All chapters conclude with "Summary," "Key Terms," and "Suggested Readings."
This book is an ideal text for students of introductory anthropology and archaeology, environmental studies, world history, and human and cultural ecology courses.
Author(s): Daniel Bates, Judith Tucker, Ludomir Lozny
Edition: 4
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 272
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Boxes
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Evolution and the Study of Human Origins and Behavior
Part One: The Study of Human Origins
The Human Evolutionary Legacy
The Nature of Scientific Inquiry
Part Two: Anthropology, Science, and the Study of Culture
Holism
Cultural Relativism
The Role of Theory
Aspects of Culture
Culture Gives Meaning to Reality
Culture Creates Gender
Gender Socialization
Gender and Work
Gender and Power
Culture Is Integrated
Culture Is Adaptive
Behavior and Learning
Language, Biology, and Culture
The Science of Anthropology
Studying Cultural Behavior: Fieldwork, Data Collection, and Analysis
Surviving in the Field
Objectivity and Science in the Study of Behavior
Summary
Key Terms
Notes
Suggested Readings
Bibliography
2 Anthropology, Human Ecology, and Politics
Human Ecology
The Nature of Ecological Systems
The Components of the Ecosystem
Population Ecology
The Human Ecological Context
Politics and Ecology
Ecosystems and Adaptation
Variation: Human Decisions and the Environment
Adapting Through Innovation
The Evolution of Procurement Systems
Adapting to Environmental Challenges
Adapting to Available Resources
Adapting to Resource Fluctuation
Political Ecology
Access to Resources: Cooperation and Competition
Environmental Uncertainty
Politics and Access to Resources
Gender, Politics, and Property
Whose Cows Are They, Anyway?
Summary
Key Terms
Notes
Suggested Readings
Bibliography
3 Foraging
The Organization of Energy
Managing Resources
Food as Energy
Social Organization
Economic Exchange: Reciprocity
Power, Influence, and Social Control
Settlement Patterns and Mobility
Resilience, Stability, and Change
The Dobe Ju/’hoansi
Climate and Resources
Settlement Patterns
Social Practices and Group Composition
Reciprocity
Quality of Life: Diet and Nutrition
Demography
The People of the Dobe Today
The Hadza of Tanzania
The Inuit Or Eskimo
The Arctic Ecosystem
The Seasonal Migrations
Demography
Social Relationships
The Impact of Modernization
Changes in Settlement and Hunting Techniques
Surviving in the Modern World
Claiming the Land
The Witsuwit’en and Gitxsan of British Columbia, Canada
Ecological Setting
The Gitxsan Seasonal Round
The Gitxsan Household Economy
Summary
Key Terms
Notes
Suggested Readings
Bibliography
4 Horticulture: Feeding the Household
The Horticultural Adaptation
Prehistoric Origins of Agriculture
Population, Settlement, and Pressure On Resources
Early Farming and Climate
Energy Use and the Ecosystem
Horticultural Cultivation Methods
Slash-and-Burn Agriculture
Social Organization
Relations Within the Community
Relations Among Communities
The Yanomamö of Brazil and Venezuela
Farming in the Jungle
Village Life
Warfare and Violence
Future Prospects for the Yanomamö
Yanomamö Update
The Pueblo of North America
Two Environments
Two Social Patterns
Summary
Key Terms
Notes
Suggested Readings
Bibliography
5 Nomadic Pastoralism
History of the Pastoral Adaptation
The Organization of Energy
Nomadic Movement
Social Organization
Tribal Structure
Hierarchical Tribal Organization
Camp Groups and Household Organization
Wealth, Inequality, and Status
Pastoralism and Market Relations
The Social and Symbolic Value of Livestock
The Ariaal of Northern Kenya
The Origins of the Ariaal
The Ariaal Adaptation
Seasonal Movements
The Household: Organization and Status
Age Grades and Age Sets
Gender Roles and Power
Can the Ariaal Survive Development?
The Yörük of Turkey
Nomadic Pastoralism Mountain Style
Changing Livelihood Strategies
Summary
Key Terms
Note
Suggested Readings
Bibliography
6 The Rise of Intensive Agriculture: Feeding the Cities
The Development of Intensive Agriculture
Social Complexity
An Archaeological Example: The Shang Dynasty of China
The Organization of Energy
Human Labor as Energy
Agricultural Intensification, Fallowing, and Land Degradation
Environmental Resilience, Stability, and Change
The Rural Consequences of Intensive Agriculture
Varieties of Rural Society
Peasants, Small Farmers, and Change
Access to Land
Sharecropping
Rural Responses to Oppression and Change
The Tamang of Nepal
The Village
Field, Forest, and Pasture
The Domestic Cycle
Sexuality and Marriage
Prospects for Timling’s Future
Where the Dove Calls: The Mexican Village of Cucurpe
Summary
Key Terms
Notes
Suggested Readings
Bibliography
7 The New Frontier: Feeding the World
Intensification Through Science and Industry
Mechanization
Nonmechanized Approaches to Intensification
Beyond Green and Blue
Specialization
Centralization and Agriculture
Expanding Cities and Migrant Workers
Dams and Their Consequences
Urbanized Rural Society
The Rise and Fall of Collective Agriculture in Bulgaria
Farming in the United States
The Development of Agribusiness in California
Growing Tomatoes in California
Family Farmers in the Midwest
The Immigrant Legacy
Current Pressures On the Family Farm
Summary
Key Terms
Notes
Suggested Readings
Bibliography
8 Global Challenges in Anthropological Perspective
Adaptation and Processes of Cultural Transformation
Long-Term Change: The Vikings in the North Atlantic
Processes of Long-Term Cultural Change
The Integration of the Postindustrial World in a Time of Climatic Uncertainty
Globalism and Adaptation to a Warming Planet
Emergence of the Information Revolution and Artificial Intelligence
The Ecological Consequences of Post-Industrialism
Energy Consumption and Resource Depletion
Pollution and Toxic Waste
The Ecology of Cumulative Change: Response to a Warming Planet
Middle America Faces the Warmer Climate: A Thought Experiment
Middle America in the 2040s
Can We Survive the Future?
Globalism and the Social Scientist
Development Anthropology and Coping With Globalism
Environmental and Ecological Factors in Development
Into the Future
Summary
Key Terms
Notes
Suggested Readings
Bibliography
Index
