ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the conferences on the Great Basin and on bands that runs through the comparisons of pre-farming societies. It examines some of the methodological implications of the conferences, especially in the conceptualization of the nature of causes and effects. Cross-cultural comparisons have shown many cases of near similarity of social structure. In the course of biological evolution, the early hominids acquired bipedalism, which enormously extended their range as compared with that of their quadrupedal ancestors. The subsequent list of cultural factors is drawn from ethnographic cases, and it is intended to explore the possibilities of a functional classification of causal factors. It is remarkable that so many of these factors are present where they are useful. Environmental features are significant in terms of their functional importance to ecological adaptations rather than their intrinsic properties such as climate, topography, or biota; for dissimilar environments may support somewhat similar societies if exploited in certain ways.
