Geoarchaeology:Env Determinism

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Environmental Determinism
Environmental determinism, also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism, is the belief that the environment, rather than social conditions, is responsible for the development of a specific culture. The fundamental argument of the environmental determinists was that aspects of physical geography particularly that of climate, influenced the psychological mind-set of individuals, which in turn defined the behavior and culture of the society that those individuals formed.

The concept of environmental determinism was first promoted by Gordon Childe (1928) to explain the origin of agriculture in the Near East as being climatically influenced. Childe’s hypothesis is that a deterioration in the natural resource leads to food shortage, and hence the need for a new mode of production capable of higher economic output. Despite its general unattractiveness to hunters and gatherers, agriculture has the capacity to support much higher population densities than economies reliant on wild resources. Criticism of Childe’s hypothesis included that it was related to the whole Near Eastern region and covered a time span of many thousands of years. For Neolithic communities environmental changes over decades or centuries may have been more important than those occurring over millennia

Environmental determinism went out of favour between geographers and anthropological archaeologists between 1960 and 1980. In particular they have acknowledged the racism implicit in the origins of environmental determinism, its use to justify theories of race superiority for peoples from northern latitudes and to denigrate peoples from the tropics. However, it seems to be regaining some credence as there is strong evidence for a close temporal correlation between climatic change and the origins of agriculture. Recent palaeoecologic research has supported the general idea postulated by Childe that the agricultural revolution was a response by people to climatic events.

Case study

 * Geoarchaeology of Phoenicia’s buried harbours.
 * Neo-environmental determinism and agrarian collapse in Andean prehistory.