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Cultural ecology is the “study of the processes by which a society adapts to its environment. Its principal problem is to determine whether these adaptations initiate internal social transformations of evolutionary change” (Steward 337). This comprehensive definition of Cultural ecology and the ensuing body of work by Julian Steward has earned its place as the standard work in human anthropology. This essay examines the main tenets of Steward’s work on Human ecology as also explains the taboos on eating pork amongst the Jews and Muslims through the prism of human ecological explanations.
Steward’s basic premise was that the best way to explain cultures was to examine them in light of environmental adaptation. His approach to analyzing the issue was three-pronged; firstly, an examination of the natural landscape, secondly, what were the cultural or behavioral devices used to exploit that landscape and thirdly what were the institutional adaptations required to align those behavioral patterns. According to Steward, the natural landscape forced the human inhabitants to adopt certain practices that could help them cope with their existence better. These practices became ‘culture’ that had a core and a periphery. The cultural core consists of features that are more closely related to subsistence activities and economic arrangements. The core includes such social, political and religious patterns as are empirically determined to be closely connected with the arrangements (Moore and Sanders 103). Moore and Sanders explain that the peripheral features of a culture acquired by diffusion or random variation, give culture distinctive shapes despite having similar cores (103). In rudimentary societies such as a hunter-gatherer society, cultural core is simpler and basic in nature. In advanced cultures the core may include technological innovations, ability to exploit minerals and resources and complex productive arrangements. The material needs of the human society thus were predicated on the natural habitat in which they lived and this led to formulation of practices or culture that has often been termed as Cultural Materialism.
Cultural materialism is nothing but the use of technology or methods to ensure subsistence or economic activity that are successful in a given environment and thus become a set pattern of behavior and practices that can be qualified as a ‘culture’. For example, in primitive societies, humans living in the plains hunting bison, a migratory species available in plenty, learned to use bows, arrows and other weapons in ways that reinforced collective hunting that assured greater material success. Thus the culture in this case evolved to form community living. On the other hand, Eskimos living in sparsely populated areas, where the game such as seals are not migratory, found it more fruitful to hunt in smaller numbers dispersed as unitary families. Here, the culture became oriented towards smaller communities, albeit, using the same weapons in different fashion. When man shifted from being a hunter-gatherer to a farmer, agriculture too modified the culture based on the natural landscape. Hence, the material culture in such settings included the weapons, the clothes that kept humans warms, and the implements that helped him farm as also the utensils that were used to cook food. In the modern world, the material culture has evolved to include not only the basic subsistence but also elements such as stocks and shares, the financial and trade systems. However, where the natural landscape was similar, cultures developed along similar lines. For such an occurrence, Steward offered the explanation that “clear similarities between cultures could be explained as parallel adaptations to structurally similar natural environments (J. D. Moore 193)”. These similarities, could in part explain the similarity in proscribing pork by both the Jews and the Muslims.
The ban by Muslims and Jews on pork can be explained through cultural ecology. It has been argued that the sparse vegetation of the Middle East lands would have made pig rearing difficult. Pigs favor shade, water and mud, the three elements scarce in desert land or semiarid lands. Pigs cannot forage like other cattle and are competitors with humans for grains. Since pigs are omnivorous and eat almost everything except grass, they could threaten the delicate ecosystem of the Middle Eastern areas where Jews and Muslims lived. Hence, practical choices forced by the natural environment necessitated customs and practices that shunned pigs as part of the food ecology of the area. To ensure that the entire community adheres to these customs, the same was introduced into the religion and culture to give it greater credibility, authority and sanctity.
The works of Julian Steward have provided the analytical basis for the continuance of cultural ecology studies. Steward’s basic hypothesis that there is a correlation between the natural landscape, the behavioral patterns and the creation of institutional adaptation has been proved right by subsequent exploration of this theme. Cultural ecology has thus added towards building a holistic, comprehensive understanding of nature and its relation to human existence.
Works Cited
Moore, Henrietta L and Todd Sanders. Anthropology in Theory. NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.
Moore, Jerry D. Visions of Culture. Lanham, MD: Rowman Altamira, 2004.
Steward, Julian. “Cultural Ecology.” ed., Macmillan. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol.4. NY: Macmillan, 1968. 337-344.
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