ABSTRACT
Anthropology is the study of humankind, especially of Homo sapiens, the biological species to which we humans belong. It is the study of how our species evolved from more primitive organisms. It is also the study of how our species developed a mode of communication known as language, and a mode of social life known as culture. It is the study of how culture evolved and diversified. And finally, it is the study of how culture, people, and nature interact wherever human beings are found [Marvin Harris, Culture, People, Nature: An Introduction to General Anthropology (1975), Introduction, p. 1]. The biosphere is as much a creation of the sun as a result of terrestrial processes. Ancient religious intuitions that considered terrestrial creatures, especially man, to be children of the sun were far nearer the truth than is thought by those who see earthly beings simply as ephemeral creations arising from blind and accidental interplay of matter and forces [Vladimir Vernadsky, The Biosphere (1998), original edition in Russian (1928), p. 44]. From the perspective of natural science, both prehistoric human evolution and the course of history may be seen fundamentally as the quest for controlling greater energy stores and flows [Vaclav Smil, Energy in World History (1994), p. 1].
