Environmental Limitation on the Development of Culture1
Environmental Limitation on the Development of Culture1
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环境对文化发展的限制1
DOI：
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发表时间：
1954
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
B. Meggers
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
B. Meggers
文化与环境的关系是人类学中最古老的问题之一，也是争论的主要来源。早期的学生对文化适应当地环境的独特特征的方式印象深刻，发展了环境决定论的概念。随着更多的实地工作由训练有素的观察者完成，文化模式的可变性变得更加明显，决定论的想法被拒绝了。然后，随着个别文化被归入文化领域，并被视为一般模式的具体表现，环境的作用再次引起人们的注意。Wissler（1926：214）以一种规律的形式表达了文化区域和“自然”区域之间存在的对应关系：“。. .当一个大陆的两个部分在气候、动植物或其生态复合体方面存在差异时，一个部分的部落群体的文化将不同于另一个部分的部落群体的文化。在过去的20年里，这种情况已经在广泛的分析（福尔德，1934; Kroeber，1939）和详细的实地研究（Steward，1938）中得到了检验，环境与文化之间的关系已经得到了如此程度的澄清，以至于库恩（1948：614）最近可以用比20年前更因果的术语来表述它：“环境的差异。. .这是为什么历史变化在不同地区以不同的速度进行，为什么更复杂的系统没有从发展中心更快地扩散的主要原因，如果不是唯一原因的话。“今天很少有人类学家会不同意环境是文化的重要条件这一普遍说法。然而，更具体地建立这种关系的努力似乎产生了负面结果。一个特定生境的潜力可以反映在生存模式、物质文化中，并延伸到利用它的文化的社会和宗教方面，但当比较具有类似生存模式或一般特征的文化时，它们并没有占据类似的环境。例如，狩猎部落可能生活在半荒漠、沼泽、森林、草原或山区，也可能生活在北极、热带或温带。相反，地理上看起来相似的地区可能在文化上有很大的差异。这导致了福尔德（1934：464）所表达的结论：
T HE relationship of culture to environment is one of the oldest problems in the science of anthropology and has provided a leading source of controversy. Early students, impressed with the ways in which cultures were adjusted to the unique features of their local environments, developed the concept of environmental determinism. As more field work was done by trained observers, the variability in culture patterns became more evident and the idea of determinism was rejected. Then, as individual cultures were grouped into culture areas and recognized as specific manifestations of a general pattern, the role of environment once again compelled attention. Wissler (1926:214) expressed the correspondence that exists between culture areas and "natural" areas in the form of a law: " . . . when two sections of a continent differ in climate, florae and faunae, or in their ecological complexes, the culture of the tribal groups in one section will differ from that in the other." In the last two decades this situation has been examined in broad-scale analyses (Forde 1934; Kroeber 1939) and detailed field studies (Steward 1938) and the relationship between environment and culture has been clarified to such an extent that Coon (1948:614) could phrase it recently in more causal terms than Wissler could use two decades before: "Differences in environment . . . are the chief if not the only reason why historical changes have proceeded at different rates in different places, and why more complicated systems have not diffused more rapidly from centers of development." There are few anthropologists today who would disagree with the general statement that environment is an important conditioner of culture. However, efforts to establish the relationship more specifically seem to give negative results. The potentialities of a particular habitat can be seen reflected in the subsistence pattern, the material culture, and by extension, in the social and religious aspects of the culture that is exploiting it, but when cultures of similar subsistence patterns or general features are compared they are not found to occupy similar environments. Hunting tribes, for example, may live in semideserts, swamps, forests, grasslands, or mountains, and in the arctic, the tropics or the temperate zone. Conversely, areas that seem similar geographically may differ greatly culturally. This has led to the conclusion expressed by Forde (1934:464):