The “ecologies” in archaeology: theoretical bases for the study of human-environment interactions

Authors

  • Jennifer Watling Universidade de São Paulo. Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2448-1750.revmae.2023.205026

Keywords:

Human-environment interactions, Cultural Ecology, Behavioural Ecology, Historical Ecology, Niche Construction Theory, Amazonia

Abstract

This essay presents a brief history of the anthropological theories used to understand the millenary interactions between people and the environment, particularly regarding archaeology. With special focus on the Amazon region, its objective is to provide a panorama of the main paradigms, starting with Cultural Ecology in the first half of the 20th century, passing through paleoeconomic and behavioural paradigms of the New Archaeology, and arriving at more recent contributions of Historical Ecology, Niche Construction Theory and indigenous perspectives.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

  • Jennifer Watling, Universidade de São Paulo. Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia

    Sou arqueóloga especializada em análises de fitólitos e grãos de amido aplicadas ao estudo das interações entre pessoas e o meio-ambiente na Amazônia. Possuo os títulos de graduação, mestrado e doutorado em Arqueologia da Universidade de Exeter (2005-2009, 2011-2014), Reino Unido, e pós-doutorado do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia, Universidade de São Paulo (2015-2018). Atualmente sou bolsista FAPESP da programa Jovem Pesquisador no MAE/USP, onde coordeno o novo Laboratório de Microbotânica, construído com essa verba em 2019.

References

Almeida, A. W. 2004. Terras Tradicionalmente Ocupadas: processos de territorialização movimentos sociais. Revista Brasileira de Estudos Urbanos e Regionais 6: 9-32.

Armstrong, C. G. et al. Anthropological contributions to historical ecology: 50 questions, infinite prospects. PLOS One 12: 1-26.

Arroyo-Kalin, M. 2017. Human niche construction and population growth in pre-Columbian Amazonia. Archaeology International 20: 122-136.

Balée, W. 1998. Historical Ecology: premises and postulates. In: Balée, W. (Ed.). Advances in Historical Ecology. Columbia University Press, New York, 13-27.

Balée, W. 2006. The research program of Historical Ecology. Annual Review of Anthropology 35: 75-98.

Basso, K. H. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and language among the Western Apache. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

Binford, L. R. 1968. Post-Pleistocene adaptations. In: Binford, S. R.; Binford, L. R. (Ed.). New Perspectives in Archaeology. Aldine, Chicago, 313-341.

Bogaard, A. et al. 2021. Reconsidering domestication from a process archaeology perspective. World Archaeology 53: 56-77.

Bryant, V. M.; Holloway, R. G. 1983. The role of palynology in archaeology. In: M. S. Schiffer. (Ed.). Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory. Academic Press, New York, 191-223, v. 6.

Cabral de Oliveira, J. 2016. Mundos de roças e florestas. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi: Ciências Humanas 11: 115-131.

Carneiro da Cunha, M. 2019. Antidomestication in the Amazon. Journal of Ethnographic Theory 9: 126-136.

Clark, J. D. G. 1952. Prehistoric Europe: The Economic Basis. Philosophical Library, New York.

Cronk, L. 1991. Human behavioural ecology. Annual Review of Anthropology 20: 25-53.

Crumley, C. L. 1994. Historical Ecology: Cultural knowledge and changing landscapes. School for Advanced Research Press, New Mexico.

Crumley, C. L. 2007. Historical ecology: integrated thinking at multiple temporal and spatial scales. In: Hornborg, A.; Crumley, C. L. (Ed.). The World System and the Earth System: Global Socioenvironmental Change and Sustainability since the Neolithic. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, 15-28.

David, B.; Thomas, J. 2008. Landscape archaeology: introduction. In: David B.; Thomas, J. (Ed.). Handbook of Landscape Archaeology. Routledge, London, 27-43.

Dennell, R. W. 1972. The interpretation of plant remains: Bulgaria. In: Higgs; E. S. (Ed.). Papers in Economic Prehistory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 149-159.

Dyson-Hudson, R.; Smith, E. A. 1978. Human territoriality: an ecological reassessment. American Anthropologist 80: 21-41.

Erickson, C. L.; Balée, W. 2006. The historical ecology of a complex landscape in Bolivia. In: Erickson, C. L.; Balée, W. (Ed.). Time and Complexity in Historical Ecology. Columbia University Press, New York, 187-233.

Fausto, C.; Neves, E. G. 2018. Timeless gardens: deep indigenous history and the making of biodiversity in the Amazon. In: Sanz, N. (Ed.). Exploring Frameworks for Tropical Forest Conservation: Integrating natural and cultural diversity for sustainability, a global perspective. Unesco, Veracruz, 150-179.

Flannery, K. V. 1969. Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East. In: Ucko, P. J.; Dimbleby, G. W. (Ed.). The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals. Aldine, Chicago, 73-100.

Flannery, K. V. 1986. Guila Naquitz: Archaic foraging and early agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico. Academic Press, New York.

Francisconi, M. J. 2006. Cultural ecology. In: Birx, H. J. (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Sage, London.

Halstead, P.; O’Shea, J. 1989. Introduction: cultural responses to risk and uncertainty. In: Halstead, P.; O’Shea, J. (Ed.). Bad Year Economics: Cultural responses to risk and uncertainty. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1-7.

Heckenberger, M. J. 2005. The Ecology of Power: Culture, place, and personhood in the southern Amazon, A.D. 1000–2000. Routledge, London.

Heckenberger, M. J. et al. 2003. Amazonia 1492: pristine forest or cultural parkland? Science, 301: 1710-1714.

Higgs, E. S. 1972. Papers in Economic Prehistory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Hillman, G. C. 1972. Plant remains. In: Higgs, E. S. (Ed.). Papers in Economic Prehistory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 182-188.

Hodder, I. 1978. The Spatial Organisation of Culture. Duckworth, London.

Ingold, T. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. Routledge, London.

Isendahl, C.; Stump, D. 2016. Conclusion: Anthropocentric historical ecology, applied archaeology, and the future of a usable past. In: Isendahl, C.; Stump, D. (Ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Historical Ecology and Applied Archaeology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 581-598.

Iversen, J. 1949. The influence of prehistoric man on vegetation. Danmarks Geologiske Undersoegelse 4: 6-25.

Kelly, R. L. 1995. The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in hunter-gatherer lifeways. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington.

Kopenawa, D.; Albert, B. 2013. The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami shaman. Belknap Press, Cambridge.

Krenak, A. 2019. Ideias para adiar o fim do mundo. Companhia das Letras, São Paulo.

Krenak, A. 2020. O amanhã não está à venda. Companhia das Letras, São Paulo.

Laland, K. N.; O’Brien, M. J. 2010. Niche construction theory and archaeology. Journal Archaeological Method Theory 17: 303-322.

Laland, K. N.; O’Brien, M. J. 2011. Cultural niche construction: an introduction. Biological Theory 6: 191-202.

Lewontin, R. C. 1983. Gene, organism, and environment. In: Bendall, D. S. (Ed.). Evolution from Molecules to Men. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 273-285.

McKey, D. et al. 2010. Pre-Columbian agricultural landscapes, ecosystem engineers, and self-organized patchiness in Amazonia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Scienced of the USA 107: 7823-7828.

Meggers, B. J. 1954. Environmental limitations on the development of culture. American Anthropologist 56: 801-824.

Meggers, B. J. 1975. Application of the biological model of diversification to cultural distributions in tropical lowland South America. Biotropica 7: 141-161.

Meggers, B. J. 1977. Vegetational fluctuations and prehistoric cultural adaptation in Amazonia: some tentative correlations. World Archaeology 8: 287-303.

Munduruku, J. B. 2019. Caminhos para o passado: Ocaõ, Agõkabuk e cultura material Munduruku. Trabalho de Conclusão do Curso no Programa de Arqueologia, Instituto de Ciências da Sociedade, Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará, Santarém.

Odling-Smee, J.; Laland, K. N.; Feldman, M. W. 2003. Niche Construction: The neglected process in evolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Outram, A. K.; Bogaard, A. 2019. Subsistence and Society in Prehistory: New directions in economic archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Payne, S. 1972a. Partial recover and sample bias: the results of some sieving experiments. In: Higgs, E. S. (Ed.). Papers in Economic Prehistory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 295-305.

Payne, S. 1972b. On the interpretation of bone samples from archaeological sites. In: Higgs, E. S. (Ed.). Papers in Economic Prehistory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 49-64.

Posey, D. A.; Balée, W. 1989. Resource Management in Amazonia: Indigenous folk strategies. Advances in Economic Botany, New York Botanical Garden, New York.

Piperno, D. R.; Pearsall, D. M. 1998. The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics. Academic Press, New York.

Rindos, D. 1984. The Origins of Agriculture: An evolutionary perspective. Academic Press, London.

Santos-Granero, F. 1998. Writing history into the landscape: space, myth and ritual in contemporary Amazonia. American Ethnologist 25: 128-148.

Santos-Granero, F. 2004. Arawakan sacred landscapes. Emplaced myths, place rituals, and the production of locality in western Amazonia. In: Halbmayer, F.; Mader E. (Ed.). Kultur, Raum, Landschaft. Zur Bedeutung Des Raumes in Zeiten Der Globalität. Brandes; Apsel Verlag, Frankfurt, 93-122.

Science Panel for the Amazon. 2021. Amazon Assessment Report 2021. Disponível em: <https://bit.ly/3Ev89qn>. Acesso em: 24/02/2023.

Service, E. R. 1962. Primitive Social Organization: An evolutionary perspective. Random House, New York.

Shock, M. P.; Watling, J. 2022. Plantes et peuplement: questions et enjeux relatifs à la manipulation et à la domestication de végétaux au Pléistocène final et à l’Holocène initial au Brésil et em Amazonie. Brésil(s): Sciences humains et sociales 21: 1-27.

Silva, F. A.; Noelli, F. S. 2015. Mobility and territorial occupation of the Asurini do Xingu, Pará, Brazil: an archaeology of the recent past in the Amazon. Latin American Antiquity 26: 493-511.

Smith, B. D. 2016. Neo-Darwinism, niche construction theory, and the initial domestication of plants and animals. Evolutionary Ecology 30: 307-324.

Steward, J. 1946. Handbook of South American Indians. Volume 1: The Marginal Tribes. Smithsonian Institution, Washington.

Steward, J. 1955. Theory of Culture Change. University of Illinois Press, Chicago.

Steward, J. 2006. The concept and method of cultural ecology. In: Haenn, N.; Wilk, R. R. (Ed.). The Environment in Anthropology: A reader in ecology, culture and sustainable living. New York University Press, New York, 5-10.

Tilley, C. 1981. Economy and society: what relationship? In: Bailey, G.; Sheridan, A. (Ed.). Economic Archaeology. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford, 131-148.

Watkins, J. 2000. Indigenous Archaeology: American Indian values and scientific practice. Altamira Press, Walnut Creek.

Watling, J., Mayle, F. E.; Schaan, D. P. 2018. Historical ecology, human niche construction and landscape in pre-Columbian Amazonia: a case study of the geoglyph builders of Acre, Brazil. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 50: 128-139.

White, L. 1959. The Evolution of Culture: The development of civilization to the fall of Rome. McGraw-Hill, New York

Whitehead, N. L. 1998. Ecological history and historical ecology: diachronic modelling versus historical explanation. In: Balée, W. (Ed.). Advances in Historical Ecology. Columbia University Press, New York, 30-40.

Winterhalder, B. 1986. Diet choice, risk, and food sharing in a stochastic environment. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 5: 369-392

Winterhalder, B.; Smith, E. A. 2000. Analyzing adaptive strategies: human behavioral ecology at twenty-five. Evolutionary Anthropology 9: 51-72.

Zeder, M. A. 2012. The Broad Spectrum Revolution at 40: resource diversity, intensification, and an alternative to optimal foraging explanations. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31: 241-264

Published

2023-05-12

Funding data

How to Cite

WATLING, Jennifer. The “ecologies” in archaeology: theoretical bases for the study of human-environment interactions. Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia, São Paulo, Brasil, n. 40, p. 163–172, 2023. DOI: 10.11606/issn.2448-1750.revmae.2023.205026. Disponível em: https://www.periodicos.usp.br/revmae/article/view/205026.. Acesso em: 31 oct. 2024.