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anthropogeography and attributed cultural differences to geographical factors
(Borsos 2004: 27-28).
In contrast, possibilism ascribes only an influencing role to the natural
environment and provides primarily historical explanations for cultural phenomena
(Borsos 2004: 27-28). One of the major critics of environmental determinism,
American geographer Carl Sauer accuses determinism of ignoring the fact that
different cultures evolved in similar environments. In his view, there isa permanent
feedback between culture and the natural environment. In addition, this trend
describes humankind as being in constant struggle with nature, which restricts
progress (cited: Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 79-80).
A new, more strictly ecological approach appeared in anthropology in the 1950s
(Bodley 2002; Borsos 2004; Orlove 1980; Poncelet 2001). In his — by now classic
— categorization, Benjamin Orlove identifies the first period with the work of
Julian Steward and Leslie White (the 1950s) and the second period with the so¬
called neo-functionalists, most notably Marvin Harris and Roy Rappaport (the
1960s — ‘70s). The third period he ties to processual studies and an increase in
historical interest (Orlove 1980). Authors who later summed up the trends of
ecological anthropology also agreed that around that time the focus shifted towards
the macroscale examination of human activities. The analytical entity of research
became the ecological population, instead of culture, culture being interpreted by
many (e.g. Julian Steward) as a tool to be adapted to the environment. (Summary:
Kottak 1999; Poncelet 2001). By now, researchers mostly regarded human
communities as part of the ecosystem and addressed themselves to questions such
as the importance of a certain culture’s adaptation to the environment during the
course of evolution (specific evolution, see Sahlins 1960; 1964); the comparison
of the efficiency of diverse survival techniques; the tracing of the evolution of
energy use in human populations, and the impact of all these issues on social
stratification and cultural development (White 1949; Service 1966; Sahlins 1968;
Wolf 1966); the study of the patterns of adaptation (Julian Steward 1955), and
the role of social and cognitive structures in sustaining the balance between humans
and the surrounding ecosystem (Rappaport 1968) (see Poncelet 2001). While the
1950s were characterized by neo-evolutionary trends concerned with questions of
energy use, technological development, and adaptation, the chief feature of the
dominant neo-functionalist trends of the 1960s and ‘70s, in Balazs Borsos’s
interpretation, was the strong scientific foundation provided by the methods and
categories of biological ecology. These researchers (the most frequently mentioned
being Marvin Harris, Roy Rappaport and Andrew Vayda) studied the social and
cultural system as analogous with the ecosystem. The unit of examination was the
populace instead of culture and the main issue of research was the given area’s
sustaining capacity and the interpretation of cultural phenomena in relation to
the environment (Borsos 2004: 43-44; Kottak 1999: 23-24). Marvin Harris’s
case study on the prohibition on killing Indian cattle (sacred cows) is also available
in Hungarian. Harris — as intended — contended that the ban was not kept alive
by an illogical religious custom, the principle of ahimsa (not to harm), but for
economic reasons (Harris 1992). Rappaport interpreted the rite of an ethnic group
of New Guinea as an element that helps maintain the equilibrium of the natural
ecosystem (Rappaport 2003).