2; see also Crumley (ed.) 1994), has been applied in other parts of the world to observe anthropogenic changes through time. Archaeologists, influenced by a wide array of scientific fields, have taken a keen interest in understanding how humans adapted, influenced, modified, and impacted their environment. This is a difficult endeavor, however, because "environments change and the magnitude of change are never constant" (O'Brien 2001, pp. 29-30). (Fitzpatrick, Keegan, pg. 30, 2007)
Fitzpatrick & Keegan point to the uses of historical ecology to investigate the interrelationships between humans and the biosphere. The importance of noting environmental changes as separate from human involvement may be erroneous. Environmental changes are hinted by proponents of historical ecology to have been initiated by humans through their interaction with the environment. The negative aspect of historical ecology, through the interaction, the killing of other species for survival, and the depletion of life sustaining natural resources such as trees and plants, archaeological findings have determine human's early complex interrelationship with the biosphere.
According to Bird et al. (2002), "The relative importance of various types of shellfish in contemporary Meriam diets is not reflected in either the contemporary accumulations of shell or in the proportional representation of shells in the prehistoric assemblage. Overall, the results of our analysis show that the variability in both contemporary and prehistoric Meriam shell assemblages is consistent with the hypothesis that foragers in the past selected a similar range of prey types and field processed them in a manner that increase the rate at which edible flesh could be delivered to a central locale." (Bird et al., pg. 467, 2002)
According to Winterhalder (2002), "Human behavioral ecology (HBE) is a subfield of the social sciences in general and anthropology in particular. It is a sibling approach to cultural, political, historical, and other varieties of human ecology, with which, like all good sets of siblings, it shares a certain amount of likeness from disciplinary contiguity, habit and sympathy, as well as the occasional episode of misunderstanding, fractiousness and critical, inter-sibling rivalry. In its broadest manifestation, HBE represents an attempt to understand diversity in human behavior on an inter -- and intrasocietal basis as the product of common, species-wide adaptive goals which must be realized in diverse, socio-environmental...
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