Showing papers in "Human Ecology in 1974"

Human Adaptation to Levels of Environmental Stimulation

Abstract: This paper examines the environment as a source of dimensions of stimulation that are directly related to the individual's affective response to his environment, and his behavioral adaptation to it. The concept of an optimal level of stimulation is introduced, along with a view of environmental stress as resulting from conditions of excessive deviation from such optimal levels, with particular reference to variations in intensity, diversity, and patterning of the stimulus input. This analysis provides the framework for a consideration of behavioral adaptation to the environment by reference to the concept of adaptation level. Levels of adaptation to particular environmental dimensions, established as a function of past exposure, are shown to act as potent determiners of the individual's evaluation of his environment, as well as representing a plausible basis for the optimal level of stimulation principle itself. The presentation proceeds to an examination of the process of adaptation to the environment as a multilayered process, and to a discussion of the concept of the cost of adaptation as it applies in the behavioral realm. Finally, adaptation is contrasted with an alternative mechanism, adjustment, involving active alteration of the environment by the individual, and the relative place to be accorded to these two processes in the individual's relation to the environment is considered.

Dung as an Essential Resource in a Highland Peruvian Community

Abstract: The present paper examines the use of dung for two essential human resources, fuel and fertilizer, in a highland community of southern Peru. The limited energy availability and the poor soils of the region, primarily the result of high-altitude climate and topography, necessitate this practice. Alternatives to dung use are costly or unavailable. Grazing herbivores transform the widely dispersed puna grasses into a compact and easily gathered source of energy and nutrients. Native choice among available dungs corresponds to their qualities: sheep dung, richest in nutrients, is applied as fertilizer; llama and cattle dungs, each with a high caloric value, are burned as fuels. Dung use is interpreted as an energetically efficient response to the highland environment and as central to the subsistence pattern in the area.

The development of personal space: Proxemic behavior of children 6 through 16

Abstract: Observations were made of the personal space behaviors of same-sex pairs of children, aged 6–16. Results indicated that children used more space as they grew older and that adult proxemic behaviors were acquired by age 12. While in the younger children no sex differences were present for the proxemic behaviors of distance and body orientation, males were found by early adolescence to stand farther apart and at greater angles than females. The development of personal space and of sex differences in these behaviors is discussed in the context of social learning.

Constraints on population growth: The case of the Polynesian Outlier Atolls in the precontact period

Abstract: A model of the subsistence economy of an insular population is proposed in which the various factors that might influence the potential carrying capacity of the environment are made explicit as a set of ecological and cultural constraints on subsistence production. The application of the model to the Polynesian Outlier Atolls is discussed, and a formula is suggested whereby the population potential of any stable and bounded ecosystem can be calculated, using data on agricultural area, productivity, and diets. The actual size of precontact populations of the Outliers and other atolls appears to have been 70–80% of the predicted carrying capacity, which accords well with ethnographic evidence for population homeostasis.

Sago production in a New Guinea economy

Abstract: The techniques used by the Sanio-Hiowe of Papua New Guinea to produce edible starch from the sago palm (Metroxylon sp.) are described. Input-output analysis demonstrates that this is a highly productive subsistence technology; nevertheless, the Sanio-Hiowe economy is characterized by an absence of intensification. This is ascribed to functional consequences of dependence on hunting and gathering in the interior. In coastal and riverine habitats, other societies using sago supplemented by fishing or horticulture can more fully exploit the potential of sago as a basis for economic intensification and a more sedentary life.

Hydraulic development as a process of response

Abstract: The relationship between political organization and hydraulic development is discussed, using illustrations from the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. It is suggested that change in political organization toward greater or lesser centralization of control over local water resource use may be part of a social response to environmental degradation (in this case, a receding water table) resulting from the effects of change in resource use (in this case, intensified water extraction). Economic stress due to environmental degradation varies in duration and intensity; such variations must be taken into account in understanding shifts in response patterns. Small-scale hydraulic development which places pressure on the availability of water for irrigation may elicit an initial response of centralization of control over its use to correct for the disturbance, water shortage. However, this response itself tends to exacerbate the disturbance through reducing previously existing homeostatic controls on the extraction of water and hence leads to greater economic stress, up to the point at which new responses must take place. Other kinds of environmental disturbance resulting from initial development attempts appear to have similar feedback effects which contribute to potential systemic instability.

Does New Guinea Cannibalism Have Nutritional Value

Abstract: This paper examines the question of the nutritional value of cannibalism. Although other authors have concluded that the practice does not have such value, we argue that this cannot properly be determined except in the context of the total subsistence economy and local human ecology. The paper also presents a format for the empirical investigation of foodgetting and new ethnographic information about New Guinea cannibalism. Our major conclusion is that this practice does have nutritional value for certain human groups, specifically tropical peoples living at lowmedium population densities and exploiting a diverse range of animal foods.

Human ecology: A unifying science?

Abstract: A historical review of human ecology as it developed in geography, anthropology, sociology, and psychology indicates that this science's ambiguity has been perpetuated by the reluctance of academicians in specialized disciplines to work collaboratively. While human ecology is considered a unifying science, few attempts have been made to reconcile differences among disciplinary self-interests, thereby preventing interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary man-environment problem solving. Human ecology will remain a debatable, ambiguous, and fragmented science unless present barriers to cooperative effort are overcome and the various disciplines unite in seeking solutions to current societal problems.

Predator-prey relationships in the southeastern Ozarks–A.D. 1300

Abstract: Archeological findings provide the basis for analyzing the exploitation of deer by Powers Phase Indian hunters in the southeastern Ozarks circaA.D. 1300. Predatory patterns of wolves have been documented. It is hypothesized that men and wolves were complementary, noncompetitive predators and that their predation functioned to keep the deer population within the carrying capacity of the southeastern Ozarks. A model is developed to illustrate the predator-prey relationships in the area.

Human Ecology in the Solomon Islands: Biomedical Observations Among Four Tribal Societies

Abstract: Data are presented from the first four groups studied in a longrange investigation of human ecology in the Solomon Islands. The groups varied in habitat, way of life, genetic background, and exposure to Western influence. Coverage of residents in designated hamlets was 78% for Kwaio, Malaita Island; 91% for Nasioi, Bougainville Island; and over 95% for both Lau and Baegu of Malaita. In all, 1626 persons were studied: 256 Nasioi, 443 Kwaio, 442 Lau, and 485 Baegu. All four groups were demographically “young,” with a high ratio of persons under 15 to those over 45 years of age, but a significant proportion lived to old age. Nutrition was adequate, though low in protein and fat. They had very little color-blindness and virtually no myopia, astigmatism, glaucoma, or hypertensive and coronary heart disease. Malaria, trachoma, and intestinal parasitism reflected differences in habitat and ways of life, but tuberculosis did not. Despite a density as high as that recorded for any human population, the Lau, living on small artificial islets in a saltwater lagoon, enjoyed robust health.

Mind, bind, and ecology: A review of Gregory Bateson's collected essays

Abstract: Gregory Bateson has one of the most exciting minds in the social and biological sciences. Those who have been touched by it, either through the literature or in person, are significantly altered. He has a talent for finding a reversal of normal approaches to a problem which can sometimes be both shockflag and exciting. His 1963 paper on evolutionary theory has been a major influence on my own thinking for the last 10 years. Curiously and significantly, the papers that I have written under the influence of the revelatory experience that I felt upon reading Dr. Bateson's paper have not received the attention that either my earlier papers or my papers written in different modes have received. This in no way detracts from my conviction of the importance and significance of what I learned from Dr. Bateson but, I believe, indicates that the Bateson thinking mode is just enough out of the mainstream of normal scientific procedure as to be somewhat suspect to most social and biological scientists. In this book, Dr. Bateson has put together a series of his articles, some previously published in journals and others which were working papers for various symposia or meetings. In addition, there is a set of curious conversations, the "Metalogues," in which the form of the conversation is considered to reflect the content of the conversation, like a terribly intellectual "Tom Swifty." It is not a unified book. The subject matter includes material on phylogeny, ecology, evolution, psychiatry, anthropology, philosophy of science, and certain areas that might simply be called pure intellectualizing. There is no central assertion of a theme, followed by the exposition or demonstration of

Wealth and growth among Mayan Indian peasants

Abstract: The significance of economic stratification in several highland Guatemalan Indian peasant communities is investigated in terms of its impact on physical growth of the inhabitants. Studies are mentioned from more industrialized countries which associate differences in growth with wealth. The question of whether richer people in such poor communities eat significantly better diets and so achieve larger size is explored by correlating economic status with the height and weight of children. The lack of a positive association in this case leads to a consideration of factors which might militate against it.

Reply to Geertz and van de Walle

Abstract: Famine control, better hygiene, and fewer wars, referred to by Clifford Geertz (1973) and Etienne van de Walle (1973) in their comments on my article "Demand for Labor and Population Growth in Colonial Java" (White, 1973), are undoubtedly conducive to population growth, but they seem inadequate as explanations of Java's population growth if the Javanese, like most other peoples of the world, have had always at their disposal various methods (both technical and social) of counteracting their influence. It therefore seemed important to ask why none of these alternatives were adopted and to examine the possibility that although population growth contributed to the impoverishment of successive generations of Javanese, the production of large numbers of children might have remained an economic imperative for successive generations of Javanese parents; for it is parents, after all, who make fertility decisions if any such decisions are made. In examining this possibility, I was criticized by Geertz for brushing aside the increasingly, complex interrelationships of the evolving, or stagnating, Javanese ecosystem in my blind and apparently unsuccessful search for the holy grail of Coontz' "demand for labor." Far from denying the importance of such interrelationships (and I apologize for major omissions in my attempt to summarize others' descriptions of them), I tried to follow the not uncommon ecological practice of examining the effects of the evolution of the total system on a single variable within that system, namely, the demand for children as potential laborers at the level of the family. I postulated that the removal of land, labor, or produce from the subsistence sector made it necessary for the Javanese to increase production on the remaining land despite the loss of adult labor; the response was the spread of irrigation (aided by the Dutch), the adoption of more labor-intensive methods, and the emergence of a high level of dry-season palawidja production. Both van

Toward a geographical theory of hypocritical decision-making

Abstract: When a community authorizes the development of a controversial project which may produce adverse ecological effects, the decision may be made on the basis of a differing geographical distribution of costs and benefits. Local benefits may exceed local costs while overall costs exceed overall benefits. This paper attempts, through a mathematical theoretical exposition, to show that this situation provides a rational incentive for hypocritical public behavior. Possible solutions are considered. One set of solutions implies return to laissez-fairetype capitalism and the maintenance of a taut, spatial economic system which is sensitive to shock. Another set of solutions implies the development of a socialist economy. Mixed solutions are presented as unstable and tending to environmental deterioration. The mirrorimage problem — of concentrated costs and diffused benefits in the United States, and the State of New Jersey specifically — is also considered, leading to similar conclusions.

Technological Change and Materials Consumption in U.S. Iron and Steel Manufacturing: An Assessment of Some Environmental Impacts

Abstract: Shifting public conceptualizations of the environment have led to a comprehensive, ecological view of the impact of industrial activity. Nevertheless, primary attention has been focused on the problem of externalities, i.e., pollution. In an industry such as iron and steel manufacturing, with its heavy demands on mineral resources and various forms of energy, some equally important questions are raised about the extent to which technological change has resulted in environmentally beneficial or harmful tradeoffs or substitutions. It is found that there have taken place, over a 50-year period, substantial reductions in the amounts of iron ore and metallurgical coke required to produce a ton of iron; however, these developments have raised certain new environmental problems. In the energy sector, the industry has responded rationally to changing relative prices in making substitutions among sources. Demand for scrap, the major recycled input, is found to be very priceinelastic; furthermore, despite some radical changes in the contributions of various steelmaking technologies to total production, the overall ratio of scrap input to raw steel output has remained remarkably stable over the past quarter century.

The study of environmental public policy: A preliminary directory

Abstract: Selected contributions to the study of environmental public policy are reviewed in the context of the difficulties faced in making such studies cumulative. The information obtained for a preliminary directory of students of environmental public policy is outlined and briefly analyzed. The directory itself is presented.