Culture, Biology, and Anthropological Demography

A rapprochement between anthropological demography and human evolutionary ecology through recognition of common research topics incorporating cultural and biological motivation.

Eric Abella Roth (Author)

9780521005418, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 16 August 2004

232 pages, 19 b/w illus. 26 tables
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.4 cm, 0.315 kg

'… Roth's undertaking is to be applauded … Roth draws on an exceptionally wide collection of materials to support his arguments … His first-hand account of how he developed this research focus will be particularly useful for those researchers engaged in or considering such cross-disciplinary work.' Population Studies

Two distinctive approaches to the study of human demography exist within anthropology today: anthropological demography and human evolutionary ecology. The first stresses the role of culture in determining population parameters, while the second posits that demographic rates reflect adaptive behaviors that are the products of natural selection. Both sub-disciplines have achieved notable successes, but each has ignored and been actively disdainful of the other. This text attempts a rapprochement of anthropological demography and human evolutionary ecology through recognition of common research topics and the construction of a broad theoretical framework incorporating both cultural and biological motivation. Both these approaches are utilized to search for demographic strategies in varied cultural and temporal contexts ranging from African pastoralists through North American post-industrial societies. As such this book is relevant to cultural and biological anthropologists, demographers, sociologists, and historians.

Part I. Anthropological Demography and Human Ecological Behavioural Ecology: 1. Two solitudes
2. Why bother?
3. Anthropological demography: culture, not biology
4. Human evolutionary ecology: biology, not culture
5. Discussion: cultural and biological reductionism
Part II. Reconciling Anthropological Demography and Human Evolutionary Ecology: 6. Common ground
7. Demographic strategies
8. Reproductive interests: social interactions, life effort and demographic strategies: a Rendille example
9. Sepaade as male mating effort
10. Rendille primogeniture as a parenting strategy
11. Summary: demographic strategies as links between culture and biology
Part III. Mating Effort and Demographic Strategies: 12. Mating effort as demographic strategies
13. Cross-cultural mating strategies: polygyny and bridewealth, monogamy and dowry
14. Bridewealth and the matter of choice
15. Demographic and cultural change: values and morals
16. The end of the sepaade tradition: behavioral tracking and moral change
Part IV. Demographic Strategies as Parenting Effort: 17. Parenting effort and the theory of allocation
18. The Trivers-Willard model and parenting strategies
19. Parity-specific parental strategies: the case of primogeniture
20. Local resource competition model
21. Infanticide and child abandonment: accentuating the negative
22. Adoption in modern China: stressing the positive
23. Summary: culture and biology in parental effort
Part V. Future Research Directions: 24. The central place of sex in anthropology and evolution
25. Male sexuality, education and high risk behavior
26. Final ground: demographic transitions
Part VI. References Cited.

Subject Areas: Educational: Biology [YQSB], Social impact of environmental issues [RNT], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Population & demography [JHBD], Social research & statistics [JHBC], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Social & cultural history [HBTB]