Adaptation

Abstract

The subject of this paper is adaptation. I shall frame my discussion in terms of three topics which have nagged anthropology since its beginning. These topics are: 1. the role of biogenetic factors in cultural behavior; 2. the relation between behavioral systems and the external or natural environment; 3. the relation between mind, behavior, and ecological adaptation. I hope to show that these three topics reduce to a single theme when they are considered in terms of the central problem, adaptation. In addition, I hope to show that two of the major lines of development within anthropology, ecology and structuralism, can be reconciled and combined in a unified approach to human adaptation.