Showing papers in "Human Ecology in 1980"

Human ecology and crime: A routine activity approach

Abstract: Prior explanations of the distributions of crime have tended to emphasize the criminal intentions of people without considering adequately the circumstances in which criminal acts occur. This paper examines how community structure generates these circumstances and applies Amos Hawley's human ecological theory in treating criminal acts as routine activities which feed upon other routine activities. For example, we consider how married women in the labor force, persons living alone, and lightweight durable goods provide offenders with circumstances favorable for carrying out certain illegal acts. We examine in particular how directcontact predatory violations require the convergence in space and time of offenders, suitable targets,and the absence of effective guardians.Various trends in the social structure can alter crime rates by affecting the likelihood of this convergence, without necessarily requiring changes in the criminal inclinations of individuals.

An Inquiry into the Evolutionary Status and Apparent Identity of San Hunter-Gatherers

Abstract: An attempt is made to reconcile a popular view of the Bushmen or San of southern Africa with reality. Following an analysis of the assumed relationships of living hunter-gatherers with their Pleistocene forebears and modern neighbors, the identity of the San is explored using archaeological and historical evidence. Finally an alternative view of modern San, consistent with this evidence, is proposed.

Bears, Pigs, and Plio-Pleistocene Hominids: A Case for the Exploitation of Belowground Food Resources

Abstract: Belowground plant parts were important potential food resources in the habitats associated with Pliocene and early Pleistocene hominids. The food gathering and dental adaptations of three groups of modem mammals — bears, pigs, and humans — testify to the earlier convergence of these animals on this resource. Since belowground food reserves are relatively unaffected by the factors controlling aboveground food supply (fire, drought, and grazing stress), exploitation of this stable nutritional bank had distinct energetic and behavioral advantages for hominids.

Environmental Analysis in Human Evolution and Adaptation Research

Abstract: Human evolution and ecology analyses argue that environment is a major factor influencing biological and sociocultural adaptation, but they rarely analyze environmental properties. Multiple problems of perspective and method can arise from the normative and nondynamic environmental descriptions which pervade these analyses. This paper examines human adaptation frameworks to identify theoretical guidelines for environmental description in ways appropriate to available theories of biocultural evolution or congruent with known ecosystem qualities. Concepts and terminology are given for describing the spatial and temporal properties characteristic of ecosystems and central to hypotheses about ecological adaptation. These include: patchiness and grain; stability and resilience; persistence and recurrence; and predictability, constancy, and contingency. Field experience, theory, and the qualities of ecosystems themselves suggest that detailed, historical (long-term) environmental analysis is necessary to determine the role of ecological factors in human evolution and adapation.

The mental arms race amplifier

Abstract: The use of tools to obtain food is probably a long-standing hominid adaptation. Therefore, the rapid increase in hominid brain size over the last million years cannot be explained by selection for basic tool use alone. Two alternative theories, here termed the ecological adaptation hypothesis and the intraspecific competition hypothesis, are reviewed and rejected. Instead, a combination of these two theories is offered: the mental arms race amplifier hypothesis.

Cows, harp seals, and churchbells: Adaptation and extinction in Norse Greenland

Abstract: The extinction of the Norse colony in West Greenland (ca A.D. 985–1500) has intrigued generations of historians, medieval archaeologists, and climatologists. This longstanding interest has generated a considerable body of basic paleoclimatic and paleoecological data, as well as a number of largely monocausal explanations for the communities' end. The 1976–1977 Inuit-Norse Project and a variety of recent geophysical and palynological studies have provided the greater detail necessary for a more systematic analysis of cultural adaptation and extinction in Norse Greenland. A dual maritime/terrestrial Norse subsistence economy, combined with a transatlantic trade and long- range arctic hunting, supported a hierarchical social organization and elaborate ceremonial architecture. Elite information management and economic decision- making seems to have been a source of ultimately fatal Norse conservatism in the face of fluctuating resources and Inuit competition.

Exploitation of marine turtles in the Indian Ocean

Abstract: Marine turtles long have been of great value to peoples of the Indian Ocean, nutritionally, economically, and culturally. Once directed primarily toward subsistence, the hunting of marine turtles for international trade has increased; today their populations are often so depleted that they are not only insignificant as resources, but are endangered. An understanding of exploitation is imperative to guarantee future populations, yet available information is sketchy. “Subsistence hunting” is an ambiguous term, since the most intense exploitation is for export. Historically this has involved Chelonia and Eretmochelys, whose populations are now much reduced. Yet, newly “discovered” populations (Lepidochelys especially) are being exploited, under the stimulus of new foreign markets (e.g., leather), and their fates seem even less hopeful than those of long-exploited populations. Moreover “subsistence hunting” for immediate local consumption has led to depletion of nesting and feeding populations of turtles in areas where protein sources are in great demand and human population densities high. Neither the future nor the solution to this dilemma is clear, but it is obvious that economic considerations must be carefully considered, and ecological arguments alone are insufficient to manage these resources.

The significance of latitudinality in Himalayan mountain ecosystems.

Abstract: This paper argues that the altitude-oriented “mixed mountain agriculture” model in which mountain dwellers move to higher altitudes in summer and lower ones in winter does not fit the empirical situation in many areas of the Himalayas where north-south or latitudinally differentiated habitat and production zones play important and, in some instances, central roles.

Child growth and the economic value of children in rural Bolivia.

Abstract: Previous investigations have yielded contradictory conclusions concerning the importance of the economic contribution of children to households in agricultural societies. The present study evaluates the significance of children 's economic input in rural Ancoraimes, Bolivia by using child growth as an indirect indicator of the economic value of children. Children whose households differed in size and age composition were compared on the basis of five anthropometric measurements. Children from households with many young, nonproducing children were found to be significantly smaller for their age than children from households with few nonproducing children. Absolute household size had no major effect on child growth. While young children have a negative effect on the growth of children in the household, the positive effect of children as they grow older appears to make up for this loss. In terms of child growth, children are neither a net liability nor a net asset to agricultural households in Ancoraimes.

Nutritional implications of staple food crop successions in Usambara, Tanzania

Abstract: Archival and ethnographic research carried out in northeastern Tanzania provides evidence of significant changes in production and consumption of staple food crops between 1850 and the present. The banana, which provided the bulk of calories and other nutrients in precolonial times, has been successively replaced by Irish potatoes, maize, and cassava in different localities. The reasons for the adoption of each of these introduced crops are explored, and their implications for human nutrition in the area are discussed.

The rural ecology of the British drought of 1975–1976

Abstract: Britain, a nation with the most organized water system in the world, suffered a protracted drought in 1975–1976 This paper casts doubt on the assumption that its causes were natural, especially in rural areas, and presents some general principles regarding the process of responding to water supply problems The past and present water situation of Britain is described, and an account of the course of the drought and responses to it is presented

Human and cattle population changes in Deltaic West Bengal, India between 1967 and 1977.

Abstract: Humans and domestic animals in 14.94 square kilometers of rural West Bengal were intensively studied between 1967 and 1970. In 1977, 3.81 square kilometers (25.5%) of the same area was resurveyed and all humans and cattle enumerated. The human population has increased 10% from 1969 to 1977, but the total number of children in the younger age groups has actually diminished. The cattle population has decreased 3.7% since the 1969 census, but in 1977 there were 19% fewer working bullocks present. Other significant observations relative to the primary productivity and economics of the area are noted.

Social responses to commodity shortages: The 1973–1974 gasoline crisis

Abstract: This paper examines social responses to the 1973–1974 gasoline crisis in the United States, using newspaper reports of automobile driver behavior in two metropolitan areas and American Automobile Association data on the adoption of rationing plans and the availability of gasoline in 48 states. From these data it is possible to identify two types of responses: individual responses by automobile drivers, which occurred in every region affected by the shortages, and collective responses in the form of rationing plans adopted by governments and gas station operators in the regions with the most severe shortages. In the latter regions the responses occurred in sequence, with individual responses emerging first and collective responses developing later.

Intermediate variables in the explanation of differential fertility: results of a village study in rural Java.

Abstract: A tendency for fertility to be higher among middle-class women than among lower-class women has been found in all the recent sources of data on fertility levels and patterns in Indonesia. After briefly reviewing these findings, this article presents the results of a community study in rural Java which systematically investigates the positive relation between fertility and socioeconomic status, focusing on the so- called intermediate variables (first inventoried by Davis and Blake in 1956) which directly determine fertility. Differential patterns of marital stability, secondary sterility, and the practice of postpartum abstinence in particular were found to contribute to the contrasts in fertility levels observed. The use of modern contraceptives, a recent innovation at the time of the study, was found to a greater extent among middle-class women, and may prove to be an important determinant of future patterns of fertility and fertility differentials.

The image of environment and mental maps in rural areas: The case of a kibbutz in Israel

Abstract: At the outset of this article I raised two questions. (1) Is the cultural homogeneity of the kibbitz reflected in its mental maps? (2) Are there differences between the rural and urban perceptions of environment? Two main conclusions can be drawn: (1) Despite a high degree of sociocultural homogeneity, two distinct conceptions of the term “environment” exist; the differences are in the scope of the area and in the number of elements recorded and are rooted in the age groups and in the personal range of activity of the interviewee. (2) The perception of elements in the rural environment does differ from that of the urban areas: cognition of the environment of the rural population is built around nodes and districts, while that of the urban population is built around paths and landmarks. The explanation of this difference is rooted in the different landscapes and in the individual's different personal activity within that landscape.

Agriculturally induced vegetation change, 1950–1975

Abstract: Changes in worldwide grain production area are analyzed to assess the impact of major agricultural activity onglobal biomass. During the 26-year study period, nearly 1% of the earth's ice-free land surface was converted to grain production. This increase in agricultural area reduced the planetary biomass; however, it had minimal effect on net primary productivity. Geographically, the overall change caused by increased grain production has been to redistribute the planetary biomass poleward.