Short description:

This book introduces students to environmental and evolutionary anthropology, focusing on how humans adapt to their environment and how the environment shapes culture. It shows how cultures evolved within the context of their environment and how their survival methods have affected other aspects of their culture.

Long description:

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.

Table of Contents:

1. Evolution and the Study of Human Origins and Behavior. 2. Anthropology, Human Ecology, and Politics. 3. Foraging. 4. Horticulture: Feeding the Household. 5. Nomadic Pastoralism. 6. The Rise of Intensive Agriculture: Feeding the Cities. 7. The New Frontier: Feeding the World. 8. Global Challenges in Anthropological Perspective.