Theories Of Cultural Ecology

Julian H. Steward was a neoevolutionist in the mid-20th century that rejected the then-popular theory that a people’s culture could only be traced by historical links to past cultures. “Together with Leslie White, [Steward] contributed to the formation of the theory of multilinear evolution, which examined the way in which societies adapted to their environment” (New World Encyclopedia, 2008). Steward argued that, as opposed to the theory of unilinear evolution that suggests that cultures develop in a regular linear sequence, changes are not universal and though some aspects of culture can develop in similar ways, few cultural traits can be found in all groups and these different factors (ideology, political systems, kinship, etc.) push culture

The idea that they are connected implies an environmental determinism instead of relative determinism and verges on controversial because it implies a predisposition for a particular cultural development based on environment instead of causality from human decisions, a concept that not many are comfortable with. Cultural ecology involves three processes. “First, the anthropologists analyze the relationship of the technology used in production to the environment in which it is used. Then they relate other behavioral patterns to subsistence. Finally, they can ask how these behavioral patterns affect other aspects of the culture, such as kinship, warfare, and religion” (Townsend, 2008). Steward focused on subsistence technology and related features of socioeconomic life and called this the cultural core. He said once could determine what is in a population’s so-called cultural core by using cultural ecological method. The cultural core encompassed the “technology, knowledge, labor, and family organization used to collect resources from the environment” (Tucker, 2013). However, his cultural core idea proved to severely underestimate the complexity and variability of environmental and social systems (Geertz,

Still following Steward’s work, many anthropologists consider themselves cultural ecologists and use his methods to study how “societies respond to change in their environment and in the cultural core” (Townsend, 2008). Before Steward put together this approach, human-environmental theories were incredibly broad and generalized or only emphasized lists of cultural traits instead.

Steward’s approach made it easier to delimit the field of study and produce a cause and effect relationship. “Steward delimited the field of human-environment interaction by emphasizing behavior, subsistence, and technology” (Moran, 2008). Those who now continue to use Steward’s methods tend to use it for researching pastoral groups, rural societies, preindustrial farmers, and especially hunter-gatherer groups, and in fact has led to a new understanding of