Unpacking Cultural Ecology Eduardo Williams, PhD. Centro de Estudios Arqueológicos, El Colegio de Michoacán (31/07/2022) 1 Abstract This essay deals with cultural ecology, defined as ‘the study of the ways in which people adapt to their environment by means of behavior, as well as their knowledge of specific natural environments and processes’ (Sutton and Anderson 2004). Cultural ecology deals with numerous aspects of culture and the environment, including how people manage to solve their subsistence problems, how they understand their environment, and how they share with others their knowledge of the natural settings, resources, and landscapes. Cultural ecology seeks an explanation of human adaptation and cultural evolution in both contemporary and ancient societies throughout the world (French and Gonlin 2016). Introduction This is the third and last essay in the ‘Unpacking’ series. After dealing with ethnoarchaeology (Williams 2022a) and material culture (Williams 2022b), we now turn to cultural ecology, the study of the ways in which people adapt to their environment by means of behavior, as well as their knowledge (and use) of specific natural environments and processes. Cultural ecology studies many aspects of culture and the environment, including how humans can solve their subsistence problems, how groups of people understand their environment, and how they share with others their knowledge of the natural settings, resources and landscapes (Sutton and Anderson 2004). Kirk French and Nancy Gonlin (2016) hold that cultural ecology can explain human adaptation and cultural evolution in both contemporary and ancient societies. Starting around the early 1960s, the combined study of culture and ecology created the background for a paradigm shift in North American archaeology (Willey and Sabloff 1980). This new perspective was pioneered by Julian Steward (Figure 1), and was embraced by numerous researchers who were not satisfied with simply documenting chronology and culture areas. They were seeking an explanatory framework that combined ecological and cultural data. Steward devoted much of his energy to the study of the environmental adaptation of specific societies. Kroeber (1948) had suggested that cultures in analogous environments would have similar responses to environmental challenges, but Steward (1955) did not 2 believe that all cultures followed the same universal development. Rather, he proposed that cultures evolved in different ways, depending on their ecological environment. Steward called his theory ‘multilinear evolution’. The approach he crafted for studying this kind of evolution involved an area of study he called cultural ecology—the analysis of cultural adaptations formulated by people to meet the challenges and opportunities created by their environments (French and Gonlin 2016). Figure 1. Julian Steward (right) with a collaborator in 1940 (after French and Gonlin 2016: Figure 1.2). However, cultural ecology has not lacked critics. David Webster (2016), for instance, says that many authors have objected to the way in which many followers of the cultural-ecological paradigm assume that all parts of culture are equally adaptive, or that they are well adapted at any given time. Another critique is that the evolutionary approach of cultural ecology relied on outmoded conceptions of unilineal evolution. In fact, Steward himself took pains to emphasize multilineal models, as we will see later. In the first half of the 20th century in Mexico and the United States, several scholars adopted a viewpoint that regarded civilization and state-level societies in Mesoamerica as phenomena that originated from the need to develop a centralized government, or political control, that regulated production systems, especially irrigation for agriculture. Pedro Armillas (Figure 2), for example, proposed that the development of religious symbolism, the construction of great pyramids, and the growth of ceremonial centers in Mesoamerica, 3 could all be explained as the result of the introduction of intensive farming techniques, such as chinampas (lakeshore raised fields), terraces and irrigation canals (Armillas 1991 [1948]). All these features made it possible to produce a surplus that might have been applied to sustain expensive ritual practices and would have created a social base for the development of such practices. Armillas thought that it would be difficult to support any other explanation (p. 146). Figure 2. Pedro Armillas in the field, ca. 1950 (Mediateca del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City). Around the same time Armillas was working in the Valley of Mexico, Gordon Willey (Figure 3) was involved in the Viru Valley Project of Peru (Willey and Sabloff 1980). Willey recognized that settlement archaeology relies intimately on the study of landscape, ecology, and site recording, but it was the concept of culture that allowed him to make an archaeological interpretation of settlement patterns. William T. Sanders (Figure 4) is probably the name that most often comes to mind when discussing cultural ecology, especially in Mesoamerica (Sanders 1981 [1962]; Sanders and Price 1968; Sanders et al. 1979, etcetera). According to French and Gonlin (2016), Sanders was influenced by Willey’s settlement pattern and cultural ecology studies. 4 This is evident in the archaeological projects directed by Sanders in the Basin of Mexico, Highland Guatemala, and northern Honduras. Figure 3. Gordon Willey in the Viru Valley, Peru, ca. 1946 (after French and Gonlin 2016: Figure 1.3). Following Armillas’ perspectives mentioned earlier, Ángel Palerm (1981 [1955]) regarded the Basin of Mexico as the best place to study ancient irrigation techniques, because ‘the flowering of civilization in this arid valley… was a true product of human effort’ (p. 110). Palerm (Figure 5) highlighted the implications of this process for the evolution of complex social formations in the following words: ‘In conclusion, we see the development of irrigation in the Valley of Mexico not so much as the result of many smallscale initiatives undertaken by small groups, but rather… as an enterprise on a grand scale, with proper planning in which a huge number of people took part… under a centralized and authoritarian leadership’ (p. 112). Another contribution to this argument comes from Eric Wolf (1959), who wrote that ‘some scholars believe that irrigation farming created the need for more efficient organization and coordination in the construction and maintenance of dams, dikes, and canals, and in the supervision of workers who built and repaired these waterworks. Irrigation farming also produced the agricultural surpluses that fed both the laborers and the new organizers of production’. However, Wolf also stated that ‘other 5 scholars favor the opposite view and hold that the new patterns of organization came first and made the new productive enterprises possible’ (p. 74).1 Figure 4. William T. Sanders in the Teotihuacan Valley in 1961 (after French and Gonlin 2016: Figure 1.4). Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, British archaeology did not lag in experimenting new ways to understand human adaptation to multiple environments in prehistory (Bahn 1996). The work of Sir Grahame Clark (1977) is especially worthy of mention in this regard (Fagan 2001). Glyn Daniel (1990:167) gives credit to Clark’s approach ‘stressing the importance of ecofacts—non-artifactual material remains with cultural relevance’ in the process of archaeological interpretation. Daniel recounts how Clark began his excavations at Star Carr in Yorkshire (northern England), in 1949. This was one ‘of the most interesting Mesolithic settlement sites; its publication in 1954 was a model of interdisciplinary archaeological scholarship’ (p. 201). Before undertaking his excavations at Star Carr, Clark had written one of his more important books: Archaeology and Society, published in 1939. According to Fagan (2001), the stimulus for writing this book came from Clark’s frustration at the conservatism of many of the archaeologists at the time, and the elusiveness of sites with organic remains. He thought it was imperative to study wetland sites and pay close attention to 1 For more information about this topic, see Williams 2022c: Chapter IV. 6 environmental change. The results of this approach are summarized in Clark’s diagram articulating habitat, economy, and biome (Figure 6). Figure 5. Angel Palerm (1917-1980) came to Mexico in 1939, fleeing political persecution in his native Spain. Photo credit: Periódico de Ibiza y Formentera (Spain). Clark’s emphasis on subsistence and economy is evident in his ground-breaking book Prehistoric Europe: The Economic Basis (1952). Daniel stated that this book ‘was a pioneer effort in turning prehistory… towards studying the life and economy of early man’ (p. 202). Clark’s work with the archaeological cultures he called ‘Mesolithic hunter-fishers’ is especially important to understand his contributions to the emerging field of cultural ecology in archaeology. Clark (1977) recounts how ‘the transition from Late-glacial to early Neothermal times was marked by environmental changes which… were notably more accentuated near the borders of the old ice-sheets than further south’ (p. 111). When the ice cover began to retreat (over ten thousand years ago), new territories were opened for human settlement in the northern parts of the British Isles and Scandinavia. The area’s abundant bogs, lakes and rivers provided favorable conditions for the preservation of organic remains, so we know a good deal about the resources, subsistence strategies and technology of the people who occupied the land between ca. 8000 and 5600 BC. According to Clark 7 (1977), red and roe deer were important for subsistence, as well as wild pigs. Aquatic birds were hunted, and fishers caught pike and smaller fresh-water fish. Our knowledge is limited about settlement patterns at the time, but we know that the site of Star Carr, dating from the middle of the eight millennium BC, was occupied mainly during the winter, when red deer (the main food source) were available in the area. When deer moved to upland pastures in the summer their predators (including humans) may have done the same. Figure 6. Grahame Clark’s diagram articulating habitat, economy, and biome, taken from his 1939 book Archaeology and Society (after Fagan 2001: Figure 5.3). Bahn (1995:203) highlights Clark’s contributions to the development of modern archaeology in the following passage: A more rounded view, tying archaeology firmly to environmental studies and ethnology, was developed by Graham Clark… From the 1930s Clark argued for an essentially economic approach to prehistory, insisting that the goal of archaeology was not to pigeon-hole artifacts in museums but to understand, comparatively and on a world scale, how people lived in the past. He envisaged prehistoric societies as operating in an explicitly ecological context but also as composed of different… components such as economy, social organization and religious belief… He pioneered the use of scientific techniques like pollen analysis… most notably in 1949-1951 at Star Carr. 8 Clark’s contributions to archaeological theory and practice are still relevant to us, especially his ideas about the interaction between humans and their natural (and social) environments. In recent years archaeologists, historians, and other scholars have built upon the foundations of Clark’s work, as we will see later in this essay. The concept and theory of cultural ecology has been important for the development of socio-cultural anthropology and archaeology in Mexico in recent years. Brigitte Boehm (1938-2005) devoted most of her career to conducting ethnographic field work and ethnohistorical research following the perspectives of cultural ecology and environmental history. Boehm (2005) highlighted the role of Steward’s work—in particular his book Theory of Culture Change—in the development of her own research and of Mexican anthropology in general. Boehm contrasted Steward’s original contributions with the later applications of his ideas, in the context of environmental history, as well as Mexican archaeology, ethnohistory and social anthropology in general. In discussing the theoretical models that emerged in Mexico during the 20th century, Boehm mentions the experiences and paradigms of Mexican anthropology, some inherited from the colonial period and others (such as Marxist postulates) introduced by European thinkers in the mid-20th century, who sought new ways to understand the systemic relationship between nature and society. I will discuss these developments in the following pages, but first I will present a short historical review of the earliest precursors of the study of the natural world (and, later, of human interaction with nature). I start with the earliest known example of someone who turned his eyes to the natural world with a systematic curiosity and a scientific mind. This was Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle (384-322 BC), who has been called ‘one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history’ (Britannica 2022). Early Studies of Culture-Nature Interaction Aristotle was the author ‘of a philosophical and scientific system that became the framework and vehicle for both Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy’. Despite the passage of time, Aristotelian concepts have ‘remained embedded in 9 Western thinking’ to this day (Britannica 2022). Rebecca Stott (2012) recounts how Aristotle would ask the fishermen of Mytilene2 to collect fish for him and would pay well for unusual specimens. Aristotle was collecting the names of all the animals on Earth, he wanted to describe every single living thing, every fish and bird. He intended to discover the secrets of nature’s patterns. To understand Aristotle’s true genius, we must bear in mind that he did not inherit a tradition of natural philosophy; he had no mentors or teachers (Stott 2012). Aristotle was probably the first person to collect animal specimens with a ‘scientific’ purpose, and the first to describe and record species. Few people would think those things worth doing back then. He was the first to believe that by looking long and hard enough at his samples of birds, bees, butterflies, and fish, nature would reveal itself (Stott 2012). Aristotle was among the first thinkers to understand the principle of change at the heart of nature. He refused to follow supernatural or mythical explanations of natural phenomena; he understood that species are continuous and gradated. But he did not believe that species had evolved from earlier forms. In Aristotle’s world, all species were fixed within a world of unlimited duration, and species were unchangeably fixed for eternity (Stott 2012). Aristotle’s teachings were instrumental in the development of the Western scientific tradition that coalesced long after his death. Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) is a good example of this situation. In the early stages of Newton’s career as a scholar, he was more of an ‘alchemist’ than a ‘scientist’ in the modern sense of the word (Christianson 1984). Although Western alchemy had oriental roots, it was largely shaped by the Greek intellectual tradition. According to Christianson (1984), ‘it was Aristotle’s beliefs concerning the constitution and unity of matter that gave hope to ancient and medieval alchemist alike, and those beliefs survived virtually intact until the time of Isaac Newton’ (p. 206). Aristotle believed that all things in nature were composed of a combination of four basic elements: earth, water, air, and fire. These elements were thought to follow certain inexorable patterns of movement (Christianson 1984). These ideas certainly influenced 2 Modern Greek Mitilini, chief town of the island of Lesbos, in the North Aegean (Britannica 2022). 10 Newton, who was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he would join the ranks of the professoriate. By 1666 Newton extended his writings on many of the subjects he had previously addressed, but he also explored several new topics, including what we would today call chemistry. We do not know the exact point in time at which Newton made the transition from collecting alchemical data to that of an active experimentalist; Christianson (1984) says it probably occurred between 1667 and 1669. In 1687 Newton published his book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which in Stephen Hawking’s opinion (1996:7) is ‘probably the most important single work ever published in the physical sciences’. Newton proposed in this work a theory of how bodies move in space and time, and he also developed the complicated mathematical calculations needed to analyze those motions. In addition, Newton postulated a law of universal gravitation according to which each object in the universe was attracted toward every other object by a force that was stronger according to the objects’ mass and the distance to each other. It was the same force that caused objects to fall to the ground (Hawking 1996). In Hawking’s opinion, ‘the big difference between the ideas of Aristotle and those of Galileo and Newton is that Aristotle believed in a preferred state of rest, which any body would take up if it were not driven by some force or impulse. In particular, he thought that the Earth was at rest. But it follows from Newton’s laws that there is no unique standard of rest’ (p. 27). Some eight decades after Newton’s death in 1727 (at the age of 84), another great English scientist was born. Charles Darwin, undoubtedly one of the greatest authors in the natural sciences, was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, on February 12, 1809 (Clark 1984). As member of a wealthy family of the pre-Victorian middle class, Darwin had no need to struggle to make a living. He devoted his energies and talents to observing and analyzing the natural environment, first in his immediate surroundings, later in the most remote corners of the world. His insights would forever change our view of the world and our place in it. Darwin’s destiny (and curiosity) took him on a five-year voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, a voyage that awakened his innate scientific instincts. As he was later to write, ‘I worked to the utmost during the voyage from the mere pleasure of investigation, [and] from 11 my strong desire to add a few facts to the great mass of facts in natural science. But I was also ambitious to take a fair place among scientific men’ (cited in Clark 1984:4). Based in part on his observations as a member of the far-reaching Beagle expedition (sailing from England to South America, the Galapagos Islands, Australia, and South Africa), Darwin published his ideas about the evolution of species in 1859, in the book On the Origin of Species, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for life (Darwin 1910 [1859]). In Clark’s (1984) opinion, it is impossible to appreciate the way in which Darwin changed our view of the universe, and of our own place in it, ‘without understanding the basically different outlook in the 1830s. The belief on which all rested was that the biblical story of the Creation was history rather than symbolic mythology… as for living things, surely there could be little doubt that they were… a pyramid of immutable species’ (p. 5) at the top of which humans stood as the pinnacles of creation. Darwin’s (1910) account of his discoveries while on the Beagle and of their implications for science is fascinating: I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of south America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species— that mystery of mysteries… On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it… (p. ii). Darwin’s unique contribution to science, and to our view of the world, is encapsulated in the following passage: ‘Considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species’ (p. 12). 12 After much debate and anxious soul-searching, Darwin’s ideas on the evolution of species were finally accepted by the scientific establishment (Clark 1984). In Darwin’s lifetime the theory of evolution by natural selection was further bolstered by other scientists, notably Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913). Wallace has been described as a ‘humanist, naturalist, geographer, and social critic’ whose ‘formulation of the theory of evolution… predated Darwin’s published contributions’ on the subject (Britannica 2022b). After this brief review of some of the most important views on the relationship between humankind and the natural world, we now turn in the next section to the main topic of this essay: the role of cultural ecology in Mesoamerican archaeology. Cultural Ecology in Mesoamerican Archaeology Around the middle of the 20th century the stage was set for the arrival of new ideas about the origins of civilization, based on new perspectives on the cultural adaptations to the natural environment. Australian archaeologist V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957) is one of the most important authors to tackle this issue in this period (Figure 7). Grahame Clark (1982) had this to say about Childe’s contributions to archaeology: [Childe] was one of the great prehistorians of the world. More perhaps than any other man he showed how by using the data won by archaeologists and natural scientists it was possible to gain a new view of what constituted human history… The general works in which he opened up new and often vast perspectives… are in many cases classics that repay constant re-reading and are likely to retain their value for a long time to come (p. 7). Childe’s work is relevant to the present discussion because he was one of the first archaeologists to emphasize the relationship between culture (or economy) and the environment, as seen in the elements of the infrastructure (i.e., irrigation works, roads, large population centers, etcetera) that were instrumental for the development of what he called ‘the urban revolution in Mesopotamia’ (1982 [1942]). In Childe’s words, ‘metallurgy, the wheel, the ox-cart, the pack-ass, and the sailing ship 13 provided the foundation for a new economic organization’ (p. 97). Without a structured economy, the items mentioned above would be mere ‘luxuries, the new crafts would not function, the new devices would be just conveniences’ (p. 97). Figure 7. Vere Gordon Childe (1892-1957) photographed in Edinburgh in 1927 (after Daniel 1981: Figure 103). Childe wrote about the ecological and cultural background for the rise of civilization in Mesopotamia. He described a relatively small tract of land, the TigrisEuphrates delta, where the landscape consisted of vast swamps, the waters teemed with fish, and the reed breaks housed many bird species and many animals, like wild pigs and others. In addition to all the resources available here, the abundant wild date palms offered a plentiful crop. Eventually the flood waters were controlled and canalized, the swamps drained, and the fertile land cultivated. After many generations, farmers in this region could produce a surplus above their household requirements (pp. 97-98). In due course the surplus produced by the new farming economy was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small social group (p. 107). In Childe’s opinion, such concentration was necessary for the accumulation of food 14 reserves, the basis for a new way of life: civilized society dwelling in small villages and towns, and eventually in large cities that became the seats of sprawling empires. Barbara McNairn (1980) examined Childe’s ideas about the origin of complex societies, and of culture in general, pointing out that Childe followed a Marxist viewpoint in his writings: ‘Marxism… must be considered as a major intellectual force in Childe’s thought’ (p. 150). It follows that his theories about the emergence of civilization and the state can be seen in this light. However, Childe (1982 [1942], 1981 [1956]) always followed his own individual interpretation of Marxism; he ‘never adhered to popular or orthodox conceptions but took from Marx what would best serve his archaeological purpose. For Childe, Marxism could serve archaeology, he did not try to subserve the discipline to a political, to an “outsider” philosophy’ (p. 166). Childe ‘was never content to remain within the confines of any particular theoretical system be it Marxism, diffusionism or functionalism. Rather he attempted to synthetise these systems in order to achieve a comprehensive approach to prehistory which would apply to all levels of socio-cultural phenomena’ (p. 166). Although Childe virtually ignored the New World in his writings about cultural evolution, his ideas had a great impact on Americanist studies, and were further developed by several authors, Steward (1955) among them (although Steward was critical of Childe’s effort to find ‘universal laws of culture change’). I already mentioned Steward’s book Theory of Culture Change. This work is important because it opened up a whole new area of interest in anthropological archaeology in the New World, following the lead of numerous European scholars, primarily from Scandinavia and Britain (Willey and Sabloff 1980: 149). Writing about the 1940-1960 period, Willey and Sabloff (1980) state that ‘the conception of environment as a determinative force in the rise and growth of cultures… moved American archaeological interests in the direction of cultural evolution… Environmental determinism and cultural evolution had been… [present] in American anthropological thinking at about the turn of the century… in the mid twentieth century… the main focus… was in the study of the complex cultures of the New World’ and, as stated above, ‘the principal figure in the environmental-evolutionary trend was Julian H. Steward’ (pp. 150-151). According to Leslie White (1957), ‘Steward was reared in the atomistic, 15 ideographic tradition of the Boas school which… rejected sweeping generalizations and philosophic systems… Steward has… done much to remove the stigma placed upon the concept—and even the word—evolution by… Boas’ (p. 542). What follows is a discussion of Steward’s Theory of Culture Change. Steward states that his purpose in writing this book was to develop a methodology for finding regularities of form, function, and process among cultures and societies in different cultural areas of the world. Steward thought that anthropology had followed a historical and comparative approach to culture, and its task had been ‘to describe the varieties of culture found throughout the world and to explain their development’ (p. 3). Steward was critical of unilinear evolution, and its claim that all societies would pass through similar developmental stages. He also berated the the cultural relativists, who saw cultural development as essentially divergent, and their attention upon features that distinguished societies from one another. The position of multilinear evolution, in contrast, assumed that certain basic types of culture may develop in similar ways under similar conditions, but that few concrete aspects of culture would appear among all groups of people in a regular sequence. For Steward, Cultural development was not only ‘a matter of increasing complexity but also as one of the emergence of successive levels of sociocultural integration’ (p. 5). Steward held that the concept of ‘cultural type’ was based on two frames of reference: cultural features derived from synchronic, functional, and ecological factors, and other features represented by a particular diachronic or developmental level. This meant that cross-cultural regularities were conceived as recurrent constellations of basic features, what he called ‘the cultural core’. These features had ‘similar functional interrelationships resulting from local ecological adaptations and similar levels of socio-cultural integration’ (p. 6). The concept of culture type, however, faced a problem: the fact that forms, patterns, or structures differed greatly. But similar functions may be served by different forms while similar forms mat serve varied functions, so Steward introduced the concept of formfunction (p. 6). Steward analyzed several culture types, presented according to their level of sociocultural integration. The lowest level was that of the Shoshonean Indians of the Great 16 Basin. This ethnic group exemplified a society of hunter-gatherers, which functioned on a family basis, with the individual or nuclear family at the center of on nearly all cultural activities. Among some hunter-gatherer societies, such as patrilineal hunting bands, special cultural-ecological adaptations led to slightly higher levels of sociocultural integration in several parts of the world. Many ‘primitive people’ were divided into several non-localized clans which functioned as interdependent parts of villages or tribes. These represented a higher level of sociocultural integration than localized lineages, and they probably developed from such lineages in different parts of the world (p. 6). Steward noted that complex civilizations developed based on irrigation agriculture in several regions of the ancient world: Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Mesoamerica, and the Central Andes. In his opinion, ‘in each of these areas fundamentally similar cultural ecological adaptations entailed a similar historical sequence which began with a simple village organization and finally reached a very high level of integration in militaristic empires’ (p. 7). To understand how these cultures were transformed from simple to complex socio-political configurations, Steward followed the approach of cultural evolution, which he defined ‘as a quest for cultural regularities or laws… First, unilinear evolution… [in] the… nineteenth century… dealt with particular cultures, placing them in stages of a universal sequence’ (p. 14). Steward rejected unilinear models, instead adopting multilinear evolution, which he defined as a methodology based on the idea that there are significant regularities in cultural change. He was concerned with the determination of cultural laws, using empirical rather than deductive methods. In short, multilinear evolution studies included historical reconstruction, but one should not expect that historical data can be classified in universal stages (p. 18). Steward held that ‘multilinear evolution… has no a priori scheme or laws. It recognizes that the cultural traditions of different areas may be wholly or partly distinctive… [posing] the question of whether any genuine or meaningful similarities between certain cultures exist and whether these lend themselves to formulation’ (p. 19). Cultural evolution could be regarded either as a special type of historical reconstruction, or as a particular methodology or approach. The historical reconstructions of the ‘unilinear evolutionists’ of the nineteenth century are 17 distinctive for the assumption that all cultures pass through several parallel sequences. This assumption conflicts with the twentieth-century cultural relativists, who regarded cultural development as essentially divergent, except that diffusion tended to level differences, in Steward’s opinion (p. 27). For those interested in cultural laws, regularities, or formulations, the answer was, according to Steward, in the analysis and comparison of limited similarities and parallels, that is, in multilinear evolution. He thought that unilinear evolution had been discredited, although it did provide ‘limited insights concerning the particular cultures analyzed in detail by the nineteenth-century students of culture’ (p. 29). In his view, ‘the most fruitful course of investigation would seem to be the search for laws which formulate the interrelationships of particular phenomena which may recur cross-culturally but are not necessarily universal’ (p. 29). Steward developed the concept and method of cultural ecology ‘as an heuristic device for understanding the effect of environment upon culture’ (p. 30); he thought that the principal meaning of ecology was “adaptation to environment”, pointing out that since the time of Darwin, environment had been conceived as ‘the total web of life wherein all plant and animal species interact with one another and with physical features in a particular unit of territory’ (p. 30). Steward said that the concept of ecology had been extended to include human beings, since they are part of the web of life. However, humans enter the ecological scene not merely as another organism in terms of their physical characteristics, because humans ‘introduce the super-organic factor of culture, which also affects and is affected by the total web of life… The interaction of physical, biological, and cultural features within a locale or unit of territory is usually the ultimate objective of study’ (p. 31). According to the holistic view followed by Steward, all aspects of culture were functionally interdependent upon one another. The degree and kind of interdependency, however, were not the same with all features. In his view, the concept of cultural core was the constellation of features which are most closely related to subsistence activities and economic strategies. The cultural core included 18 ‘such social, political, and religious patterns as are empirically determined to be closely connected with these arrangements… Cultural ecology pays primary attention to those features which… [are] most closely involved in the utilization of environment in culturally prescribed ways’ (p. 37). Steward saw the concept of environmental adaptation as underlying all of cultural ecology but thought that the researcher had to consider the complexity and level of the culture under discussion; this could be a community of huntergatherers who subsist independently by their own efforts, or it could be an outpost of a wealthy state exploiting mineral resources. In more developed societies, the nature of the culture core would be determined ‘by a complex technology and by productive arrangements which themselves have a long cultural history’ (p. 39). In discussing the concept of culture area in aboriginal America, Steward remarked that this concept (as well as the cultural type concept) had played an important role in the thinking of American anthropologists, since they had generally classified data on aboriginal cultures following area categories (p. 78). A culture area was defined as a geographical delimitation of peoples sharing certain features, although there was no objective means for weighing the importance of local differences and for deciding which categories of elements were of greatest importance. These areas were presumed to have acquired their shared traits through diffusion, and their limits were defined ‘by the similarity of societies to one center rather than to another and different center. This implies that diffusion had been going on for a long time, which brings us to the problem of historical depth in relation to taxonomy’ (p. 82). In the context of Mesoamerican studies, cultural ecology has had a great influence on the development of theories seeking to explain the development of complex societies in the pre-Hispanic past. Steward explained this link between culture, nature, and history with the following words: ‘Any reconstruction of the history of a particular culture implies… that certain causes produced certain effects. Insights into causes are deeper when the interrelationships of historical phenomena are analyzed functionally’ (p. 181). He further held that most American 19 anthropologists explained similarities between the early civilizations of the New World as a case of single origin and diffusion, at the same time stressing the differences between the civilizations of the Old and New Worlds. Steward paid a great deal of attention to the development of early agricultural civilizations in several key areas of the world: Mesoamerica, Northern Peru, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. He chose these areas because they were the cradles of civilization and because their exploitation by a pre-iron technology seemed to have ‘entailed similar solutions to similar problems and consequently to have caused similar developmental sequences. The environments are arid or semiarid, which… did not impose great difficulties and thereby stimulated cultural development’ (p. 185). In Steward’s scheme of cultural evolution, there was an era of regional development and florescence (such as the Classic period in Mesoamerican archaeology, ca. AD 200-900). This era ‘was marked by the emergence and florescence of regionally distinctive cultures… irrigation works were enlarged, thus releasing a larger portion of the population to develop arts and crafts and to further intellectual interests. Multi-community states arose… interstate competition and state expansion seem to have entailed some militarism’ (p. 193). Eventually, ‘a class-structured society… became fully established (p. 194). Focusing on Mesoamerica, Steward highlighted the evolving native technology, primarily improvements on agriculture, like large-scale irrigation systems (raised fields or chinampas and terracing). In his opinion, irrigation fostered the development of distinctive social features: (1) theocratic states that controlled all settlements of a valley or other natural regions; (2) large mounds and temples; (3) a priestly hierarchy that worshipped gods of rain and water and elements of nature such as the jaguar, serpent, and quetzal bird; (4) militarism; and (5) long-distance trade. Intellectual and esthetic traits included phonetic writing, mathematics, astronomy, and ‘the finest art of all eras’ (p. 195). According to Steward, in arid and semiarid regions, agriculture was carried on by means of flood-plain and irrigation farming. With the development of 20 irrigation works, population would increase until the limits of water were reached. Social or political controls became necessary to manage irrigation and other communal projects. We know that early societies were strongly religious, so individuals with supernatural powers like lineage heads, shamans, or special priests may have formed a theocratic ruling class, which first governed communities with multiple house clusters, and later multi-community states (p. 206). The surplus created by farming released considerable labor from subsistence activities, and new technologies were developed. When these societies reached the limits of agricultural productivity (dependent on the local water supply), ‘population pressures developed within each state and states began to compete with one another for resources and products… Empire-building meant… that any local state which was intent on conquest and wished to exact goods and services from other states had to subordinate the rulers of those states’ (p. 206). In Steward’s view, subsistence activities in the most densely populated areas depended on ‘an orderly interrelationship of environment, subsistence patterns, social groupings, occupational specialization, and overall political, religious, and perhaps military integrating factors. These interrelated institutions do not have unlimited variability, for they must be adapted to the requirements of subsistence patterns established in particular environments… they involved a cultural ecology’ (pp. 208-209). The book Theory of Culture Change had an important impact on Mesoamerican archaeology soon after its publication in 1955. William Sanders (1981 [1962], 1965) was one of the first archaeologists to incorporate the theory of cultural ecology in his research in the Teotihuacan Valley in the early 1960s. Sanders (1981 [1962]) defined cultural ecology as ‘the study of the interaction of cultural processes with the physical environment’, and stated his theoretical position with the following ideas: (1) Each environment offered a different set of challenges to human occupation, therefore we may expect a different set of alternate cultural responses; (2) In their response to such challenges, humans tend to take the path of greatest efficiency in the exploitation of the environment; (3) The environment should be regarded as an active, integrated part of the cultural system, rather than a passive 21 factor outside of the cultural framework. Sanders used the foregoing ideas as a basis for explaining the origin and nature of Mesoamerican urbanism. Figure 8. The Basin of Mexico and the Central Mexican Symbiotic Region (after Sanders 1965: Figure 1). 22 Sanders held that pre-Hispanic urbanism had been identified in the Central Plateau of Mexico, within ‘a small, compact, centrally located zone… [called] the Nuclear Area because of its cultural dominance in the history of Mesoamerica’ (p. 38). This area included the Basin of Mexico, located in the region Sanders called the ‘Central Mexican Symbiotic Region’ (Figure 8), in which, according to Sanders (1965), ‘both pan-Mesoamerican empires, Aztec and Toltec, had their capitals in this area, and earlier Teotihuacan (Figure 9) seems to have been the center of a third, similar state’ (p. 38). The urban tradition described above depended on ‘ecological conditions… optimal for the development of an intensive system of agriculture’ that included such ‘techniques of soil and water conservation as permanent irrigation, chinampas, flood water irrigation… terracing, and fertilization... The application of [these] practices resulted in an extremely dense population… In the history of the Nuclear Area’ only two settlements—Tenochtitlan and Teotihuacan—achieved the status of true cities, according to Sander’s criteria (p. 39). Sanders (1965) summarized his thoughts about cultural adaptation to the natural environment with the following words: ‘The culture of a given people can be considered essentially as a complex of adaptive techniques to the problems of survival in a particular geographical region... cultural evolution... is a superorganic process that [grows] out of organic evolution... and population density is a measure of such success in a given area at any point in time’ (p. 192). Sanders and Price (1968) elaborated the arguments presented above by stating that irrigation canals taking water to the farming plots had to be cleaned periodically by a communal work force, which had to be planned and organized. This operation would be more efficient with the presence of a state-level political structure. In areas where farmers faced adverse conditions, such as scarce water or farmland, the ensuing conflicts over access to agricultural land would require a formal authority—i.e. a state—to avoid the escalation of conflicts over land or water (p. 176). Sanders and Price (1968) pointed out that the term ‘ecology’ as used in cultural anthropology refers to three levels of relationships of people to their environment. First, it refers to the relationship of a human community to its inorganic environment and second, to the plants and animals both wild and domestic) that humans depend on. There is a third level of analysis, that pertains solely to human ecology: ‘The interrelationships between human beings within an organized local community and between human communities. 23 Since human behavior is… cultural behavior, we refer to the use of ecology min cultural anthropology as cultural ecology’ (p. 70). Figure 9. Sanders based many of his ideas about Mesoamerican urbanism on his fieldwork at Teotihuacan, where the Sun Pyramid (top) and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl (bottom) are located (photos by Eduardo Williams, 1978). 24 According to Sanders and Price, from the perspective of cultural ecology, the culture of a given people is a subsystem in interaction with other subsystems, and the key to understanding the processes of development of the cultural subsystem lies in this interactive relationship. The total network of relationships between subsystems is called ‘ecological system’ or ‘ecosystem’. It includes three subsystems: culture, biota, and physical environment (p. 71). Two decades after Sanders’ writings cited above, the ‘Asiatic mode of production’3 was still being offered as explanation for the origins of complex societies in Mesoamerica. Boehm (1985) went so far as to call this theoretical construct ‘the greatest contribution to our knowledge of pre-Hispanic Mexico’ (p. 238). Boehm explained the role of the ‘Asiatic mode of production’ in the emergence of Mesoamerican civilization thus: ‘From its origins, social stratification in the Valley of Mexico was due to differential access to certain strategic resources… which… required extended and constant human toil to exploit them. The appropriation and control of labor by the dominant class was exercised through state institutions like politics and religion’ (p. 243). The proponents of the aquatic mode of production did not limit their ideas to the Basin of Mexico. Sanders and Nichols (1988) proposed that in the Valley of Oaxaca (Figure 10), the process of state formation had been part of a coercive situation whereby egalitarian farmers were exposed to ecological and social pressures because of scarcity of land and water. This situation ended up producing the gradual changes from tribal societies to states with a peasant economy (p. 33). These ideas were met with strong criticism from several authors. George Cowgill (1988), for instance, held that the materialist approach espoused by Sanders and his followers dealt with a limited view of reality, since ideational factors are too important to be ignored. Ideology, religion, beliefs, and values, as well as socially induced emotions and perceptions of reality conditioned by culture are not independent from geological, climatic or biological factors, neither are they determined by purely material circumstances (p. 54). 3 Angel Palerm (1980) was one of the proponents of the Asiatic mode of production in Mexican archaeology. This concept was based on the writings of Karl Wittfogel (1957), who considered irrigation as the main (if not the only) force behind social evolution culminating with the origin of the state in the ancient world. 25 Figure 10. Monte Albán is the largest pre-Hispanic site in the Valley of Oaxaca (top: panoramic view of the main plaza; bottom: detail. Photos by Eduardo Williams, 1978). Kent Flannery (1988) also expressed doubts about the merits of Sanders’ materialist approach. Flannery thought that Sanders was too obstinate in his theory of land and water as the main variables in the processes that led to civilization, and demographic pressure as 26 the constant factor behind the origins of complex societies. According to Flannery, cultural ecology, so popular in American anthropology during the 1950s and 1960s, was no longer the main explanation twenty years later. Flannery thought that the key to understand early urban civilizations was not the relationship between people and land, but between people and people, including political maneuvers, communal enterprises, war and defense, the justification of inequality by a state cult, the exaction of tribute, among many other phenomena that ultimately led to the formation of states (p. 58). Flannery (1972) held that …some human societies have evolved to levels of great sociopolitical complexity... [but] few attempts to explain them... have met with success... complex societies are simply not amenable to the simple kinds of structural, functional, or culturological analyses which anthropologists have traditionally carried out. The limited success of so-called "ecological approaches" to complex societies has led to... criticism from humanists... Indeed, there is a widespread belief among [many] archaeologists and ethnologists that ecological approaches are... inadequate for the study of civilizations (pp. 399-400). The notion of the ‘Asiatic mode of production’ has been called into question by recent research in Mexico and other parts of the world. Studies in the Lake Titicaca (Bolivia) area, for instance, have produced data that do not support Sanders’ ‘hydraulic hypothesis’, suggesting instead that complex irrigation systems were built and maintained by village-level societies, not urban-dwellers, and that complex polities actually developed before complex agricultural systems (Stanish 1994). Among the Olmecs of the Formative period, for instance, it was excessive humidity, rather than the need for irrigation, that led to complex societies (Carneiro 2011). In the Valley of Oaxaca, meanwhile, states relied on quite basic irrigation techniques that did not require state supervision (Feinman 2006). A final example comes from the island of Bali in Indonesia, where Karl Wittfogel (1957), echoing Karl Marx, suggested that it presented an example of the ‘Asiatic mode of production’. Despite decades of research in Bali, scholars have been unable to prove that irrigation there is centrally organized. In fact, signs indicate that it remains in the hands of local farmers, not the ruling state. Agriculture seems to be managed by a series of ‘water temples’ that function as regulators of the agricultural ecosystem (Lansing 1987:328). 27 Figure 11. Group of men from Papua New Guinea in ceremonial attire (photographic reconstruction by Jimmy Nelson [2014]). The negative critiques of cultural ecology as explanator for cultural evolution cited above may or not be warranted; the issue is still open to debate. But we should bear in mind that cultural ecology goes beyond the study of complex societies in ancient times, as I will show below. A case in point is Roy A. Rappaport’s (1984) work among the Tsembaga people of New Guinea, where he explored the function of ritual in the context of human ecology. Another example mentioned below is ceramic ecology as a research tool in the study of human-environment interaction among potters in Mesoamerica. Rappaport's book Pigs for the Ancestors (1984) presents an ethnographic analysis of the role of ritual within human ecology. This study is based on the Tsembaga, a group of slash-and-burn horticulturists, as well as hunter-gatherers and pig farmers, who live in the Bismark Mountains of New Guinea. The main concern of this study is the way in which 28 ritual affects the relationships between a human group and its environment. Rappaport's goal was to observe the role of ritual in the adaptation of social groups to their environment. His interest focuses on the way in which ritual mediates critical relationships between the human group studied and external entities. Among the Tsembaga, the following is achieved by means of ritual: (1) relations between people, pigs and orchards are regulated; (2) the slaughter of pigs and the distribution and consumption of their meat are regulated, increasing the value of pork in the diet; (3) the consumption of wild animals is managed in a way that increases their value to the population as a whole; (4) an even distribution of people over the territory is fostered, as well as the redistribution of land among territorial groups; (5) the frequency of war is regulated, the severity of conflicts between groups is mitigated; and, (6) the exchange of goods and people between local groups is facilitated. According to Rappaport, Tsembaga agriculture is based on the cultivation of nonpermanent orchards, which are moved from place to place within the secondary forest, these forestry practices ensure the maintenance of trees that produce useful materials. Pig farming is one of the most important economic activities, and the ritual practices of the Tsembaga are closely related to this activity. Most ritually important occasions are marked by the slaughter of pigs and the consumption of their meat. Aside from providing food for their owners, pigs make at least two other contributions to livelihoods: they feed on roots that humans can't effectively obtain, while clearing weeds and softening the soil, making the task of sowing much easier. Second, pigs eat garbage and human feces, contributing to the disposal of waste material. In the same way that the Tsembaga form part of a network of relationships with non-human components of their immediate environment, they also participate in relationships with other local populations like them, but outside their territory. Friendly relations are based on the exchange of women (by marriage) and goods (trade). On the other hand, hostile relationships involve ritually sanctioned long periods of mutual avoidance, punctuated by armed conflict. The kaiko is a ritual cycle that lasts the whole year in the Tsembaga calendar. The kaiko provides an efficient way to eliminate surplus animals (pigs), and a way to limit the 29 calories invested in obtaining animal protein. Aside from eliminating pigs that have become ‘parasites’ of humans, mass-scale pig slaughter is one way to prevent the earth from being invaded by these animals. These features of the kaiko are ecologically beneficial because they aid in the dispersion of the population, the movement of goods, food, and people, as well as fostering social and political relations at the local and extra-local levels. Preparations for the kaiko among the Tsembaga begin with the planting of stakes at the boundaries of their territory. The rituals associated with planting the stakes can be seen as cyclical ratifications of mutual aid agreements between members of various local populations. The exchange system in which the kaiko is immersed serves to integrate all or many of the groups of a region. But ritual cycles represent more than just a way of elaborating the relationships that arise from economic interdependence, or of formalizing economic interdependence in ceremonial exchanges. Rappaport considers the ritual cycle of the Tsembaga as a complex homeostatic mechanism, which works to maintain the values of certain variables within ranges that allow the perpetuation of a system over indefinite periods of time. The Tsembaga practice extensive slash-and-burn agriculture, growing taro, yams, sweet potatoes, cassava, sugarcane, and various other plants, in small gardens cleared and fertilized by the slash-and-burn method. This mode of production allows the Tsembaga to satisfy their caloric needs with a relatively small investment of time, roughly 380 hours a year per farmer involved in the agricultural process. However, there are some environmental constraints that we should consider to understand the ecosystem of tropical slash-and-burn agriculture. The main problem has to do with forest regeneration, as the productivity of these orchards declines rapidly after two or three years of use, and more land must be cleared to avoid a drastic reduction in labor efficiency and productivity. Because of this, farmers using this mode of production need a considerable amount of forest per capita, even though in any year no more than 5% of their total territory is under production. Tropical forest ecosystems produce an enormous amount of plant biomass, but the animals that inhabit this ecological environment are small, furtive, and arboreal. As human population density increases, wild animals quickly become scarce and very difficult to 30 obtain. The Tsembaga, like almost every other human group, value animal protein very highly, especially in the form of fatty meat. They have depleted the wild animals in their territory but have compensated for this by raising domestic pigs. The Tsembaga let their pig population increase for several years, killing them only on ceremonial occasions. When the effort required to care for the pigs becomes excessive, a feast is held to cull them, resulting in a huge drop in the pig population. This festival is probably related to the cycle of reforestation in the gardens, as well as the regulation of war and peace between the Tsembaga and their neighbors. According to Rappaport, to deal with the relationship between ‘natural law’ and ‘cultural meanings’ and their interaction with the affairs of human groups, it is necessary to consider an ‘operational model’ and a ‘cognitive model’. The first consists of a description of the ecological system through empirical observations (like weighing, measuring, and counting). The cognitive model, on the other hand, describes a people's knowledge and beliefs about their environment. All ecosystems are characterized by the exchange of matter, energy, and information between their components. Most ecological studies look at the transfer of matter or energy but neglect the information exchanges that regulate such transfers. The book Pigs for the Ancestors has the merit of considering information exchanges, as well as both the emic and ethic aspects of human-environment relations, from a systemic and processual perspective. Ceramic ecology is another example of the cultural-ecological approach used in archaeology and sociocultural anthropology. Ceramic ecology has been established as an analytical approach to ceramic materials with contextual, multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives through which researchers seek to place physical and scientific data in an ecological and sociocultural framework by relating the technological properties of raw materials to the manufacture, distribution, and use of ceramic products within social contexts (Kolb 1988:viii). Ceramic ecology perceives cultural systems holistically, considering such factors as the ceramic complex (i.e., all materials and processes involved in the production and use of ceramics), the biological environment, the physical environment, human biology, and culture (Figure 12). 31 Figure 12. Diagram of ceramic ecology, incorporating the ceramic complex, the biological environment, the physical environment, human biology, and culture (after Kolb 1989: Figure 3). Frederick R. Matson (1912-2007) was an early proponent of the ceramic ecology approach. Matson was a ceramic engineer, ethnographer, and archaeologist specialized in archaeometry. His ground-breaking edited volume (1965) entitled Ceramics and Man pursued a ‘cross-fertilization’ that examined the social processes and factors involved in ceramic studies. This volume presents a critical and constructive revision of the kinds of contributions usually made by ceramic analysis to archaeological and ethnographic research. Matson’s proposal involved linking ceramic objects with the people who made and used them (Kolb 1988:vi-vii; Matson 1965). In 1951, Matson commented on ceramic studies in contemporary archaeological reports. He stated that while most of them provided good descriptions, he wondered how many readers would take the time to read or try to visualize ceramic objects once they had been described at the cost of so much time and diligent labor. In his opinion, it would be more productive to spend less time on ceramic descriptions in terms of physical measurements and give greater consideration to the variations in the wares linked to the problems faced by the potters in their manufacturing processes (Matson 1951:106). Matson further encouraged researchers to undertake careful examinations of the ethnographic literature and implement ethnographic research designs with an archaeological 32 orientation (i.e. ethnoarchaeology) in order to shed light on the technical aspects of ceramics and pottery. The lack of common ground between ceramic studies and the analysis of socioeconomic patterns was a preoccupation that began to emerge in the late 1950s, but ecological paradigms offered a productive way to address these variables (Arnold 1985; Kolb 1989:281). Kolb (1989), meanwhile, presented a model that allows us to obtain a clear grasp of what he calls “holistic ceramic ecology”. This model of ceramic production centers on a ceramic complex that consists of a cultural system and an environmental system, each one with subsystems necessary for the operation of the complex. The cultural system includes the following subsystems: economic, social, religious, psychological and, of course, the ceramic production subsystem itself. The environmental system consists of physical, biological, and environmental-cultural subsystems. These systems and their respective subsystems are mutually linked by feedback mechanisms. According to Kolb (1989), the key component of the ceramic complex is the ceramic production subsystem, which contains the main variables that affect the production of a clay object: from raw material procurement to the use and discard of the vessel at the end of its functional life. Kolb (2018) defined ceramic ecology as a ‘methodological and mid-range theoretical approach’ (p. 1), looking for ‘a better understanding of the peoples who made and used pottery’. Ceramic ecology ‘seeks to redefine our comprehension about the significance of these materials in human societies… [and] seeks to evaluate data derived from the application of physiochemical methods and other techniques borrowed from the physical sciences within ecological and sociocultural frames of reference’ (p. 1). Ceramic ecology’s holistic approach seeks ‘to relate environmental parameters, raw materials, technological choices and abilities, and sociocultural variables to procurement of resources (clay, temper, and fuels), the manufacture, decoration, distribution, and use of pottery vessels and other ceramic artifacts’ (p. 1). Hence, ceramic ecology spans the whole life cycle of ceramic products, from fabrication through ultimate use and discard. Prudence Rice (2015) has said that ‘the ceramic ecology approach has been criticized along the same lines that cultural ecology was critiqued decades ago, as narrow determinism or possibilism’ (p. 210). 33 Figure 13. Potters in Teponahuasco, Jalisco, selling their wares in the town’s churchyard during the dry season (author’s photo, 1990). But the theory behind ceramic ecology does not hold that the physical environment controls or limits pottery-making. Instead, ‘it establishes some of the circumstances within which potters’ decisions may be supported or constrained as they practice their technologies… The environment … has an underlying role in vessel function with respect to the kinds of foods consumed and their preparation’ (p. 210). I have conducted research in West Mexico since 1990, following the perspectives of ethnoarchaeology and ceramic ecology. My initial fieldwork was in Teponahuasco, a pottery-making town in Jalisco (Figure 13). In this town, potters work mainly in the dry season (October to June), dedicating the rest of the year to farming (Williams 1992). In the Tarascan community of Huáncito, Michoacán, I worked in several potting households (Williams 2018), studying the consumption of fuel in the kilns (Figure 14) and the procurement of clay (Figure 15) and other materials used in pottery making. In some Tarascan towns in Michoacán, like Zipiajo (Figure 16), potters fire their wares in the open, without using kilns (Williams 2017). 34 Figure 14. In the Tarascan community of Huáncito, Michoacán, potting households use firewood as fuel in the kilns (author’s photo, 2014). Conclusions This essay presents an overview of cultural ecology in Mesoamerica and other areas of the world. It includes background information about the first authors to describe humankind’s relationship to the natural world. After discussing several examples of the theories around the cultural ecological paradigm, I describe ceramic ecology as a recent approach that seeks to understand ceramics as a product of cultural and natural processes. Robert M. Netting (1986) wrote that cultural anthropologists had borrowed the term ecology from the biologists and ‘bent it to their own particular uses. They began with humanity, examining the environment as people were affected by it, used it, sought to understand it, and modified it’ (p.1). Human interaction with nature has certainly been one of anthropology’s most enduring concerns, and it may have formed one of the earliest 35 intellectual exercises, as I discussed above. Anthropologists have always been aware ‘that the human species is grounded in its environment… cultural anthropology… emphasized the particularity and uniqueness of its object of study. Human culture was the focus of anthropology’ (p. 2). Figure 15. Potter in Huáncito excavating the clay used in pottery making (author’s photo, 1992). For many anthropologists, culture was a set of patterns inside people’s heads, that could be investigated quite apart from their specific natural environment. Netting thought that the natural and the social sciences had become specialized and isolated from each other. Anthropologists distinguished between physical and cultural studies, and seldom related their findings in any consistent way to environmental factors. With detailed, 36 firsthand information on little-known peoples, anthropologists could discard expansive generalizations. A prime example of this situation was the theory of environmental determinism, which regarded specific cultural traits as arising from environmental causes. Figure 16. In the Tarascan town of Zipiajo, Michoacán, potters fire their wares in the open, without using kilns (author’s photo, 1995). But most anthropologists did not accept simple, mechanistic explanations of culture. ‘In making comparisons between societies in generally similar habitats or adjacent regions, they emphasized the complexity of the relationship between the environment and the manifold technical and social devices for exploiting it’ (p. 4). According to Eric Wolf (1999), Marvin Harris (1980) called his explanatory strategy, centered on the notion of cultural ecology, ‘the principle of infrastructural determinism’. In Wolf’s view, ‘this principle joins Marx with Malthus and accords priority 37 in explanation to observable behaviors in both production and reproduction… [which] can only be changed by altering the balance between culture and nature, and this can only be done by expenditure of energy’ (p. 58). Such environmental determinism has been called into question by many authors in recent years, as we saw above (see discussion in Williams and López 2009). For Emilio F. Moran (2017), cultural ecology includes the study of ‘human agency and the state of the earth’. Moran points out that in the last decades Earth has continued to be treated with little thought for the future. He warns that more and more plant and animal species are going extinct, while wetlands and other natural habitats are disappearing. Moran also warns that ‘unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide threaten our climate system, coral reefs, and the Antarctic ice sheets. Our closest ape relatives are finding less and less of their habitat left standing to ensure their survival. The story goes on, giving cause for considerable alarm… Without effective action to ensure the sustainability of the world’s ecological systems, our days in the planet may be counted’ (p. 1). There are many examples of ecological destruction in the Anthropocene, not just in Mexico but worldwide, from the Aral Sea, which once was the world’s fourth-largest lake but now is completely dry (Hoskins 2014), to the disappearing lakes of the Middle East, China, and West Africa (Purvis and Trif 2016) and the recent massive fires in the Amazon Basin (Watts 2019). But I would like to end this essay on a more optimistic note. History teaches us that humankind has faced serious challenges from prehistory to the present, and yet somehow, we have always managed to survive. History will carry on, and new challenges will no doubt arise in the future. The main lesson that we can take away from this story is that humankind has persevered no matter what. And one can only hope that we will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. 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