Environmental Anthropology

Man’s complex and multifaceted relationships with various components of his surrounding physical environment find concrete expression in the various types of bio-cultural adaptations formulated by human societies down the ages. The biological and socio-cultural variations as they exist today are interpreted as obvious outcomes of the prolonged differential man-environment interaction patterns thrived and nurtured in peculiar historical and spatial situations of diverse ecological niches. Environment as governing force has been perceived only by men among all animals and men alone among the living creatures tried to consciously manipulate it for securing physical existence and material comforts. As concomitant to this endeavour men had to change themselves and work out adjustment interfaces or adaptive mechanisms as known in technical parlance. While environmental determinism has lost its weight as an anthropological argument, the emphasis on a relationship of feedback between man and environment according to its own merit has gained eminence in contemporary researches. Man interacts with not only the natural environment, in which he finds himself or to which he places his demands, but also with the structures built by him and his own developmental activities. Anthropology as a relevant discipline to deal with man’s environment has enough to disseminate about the great and varied illustrations of harmonious relationships that human groups offer which may contribute towards strengthening current world wide movement of environmental awareness, conservation and securing future of humanity at large. The present volume contains the proceedings of the National Seminar: Environmental Anthropology organized by the North West Regional Centre of the Anthropological Survey of India. The Seminar had six academic sessions with presentations of fieldwork based research papers by research personnel of the Survey.