ABSTRACT
The case for developing an integrated social
and environmental perspective on environmental
changes of the Late Quaternary has been outlined
in Chapter 1 where the need to avoid the often
simplistic opposition of people and nature was
highlighted. Evidence for environmental change on
a wide range of spatial and temporal scales has
been outlined in Chapters 2-4; we turn now to
a consideration of the interactive relationship
between people and their changing environments.
A remarkable feature of humanity is the capacity
to adapt to diverse environmental conditions,
which has made it possible to occupy almost every
terrestrial environment on earth. Observation of
any culture demonstrates diverse ways in which
people and their ways of life are affected by
environmental factors. These range from physical
anthropological evidence for the cold adaptation
of the Inuit, to the mobile savanna lifestyle of the
African Masai which has produced the greatest
runners on earth.
