An Invitation to Human Ecology

Understanding Environments, Ecosymbolism and the Change in the Use of Worlds

Abstract

What is the discipline of human ecology? Some consider the ecological study of man to be a holistic, integrative and yet firm discipline that deals with clearly specified questions, some says it is just a point of view. No definition will be proposed in this paper; instead a "human-ecological" way of thinking and working will be evoked. Three things are stressed: first it is suggested that ecoiogy should be studied as a phenomenon of semiotic or informational character, secondly the concept of human ecology is presented as a personal, societal and environmental recursive system. Finally, and through the theories of Anthony Giddens, the strong coupling between different worldviews and the use of the environment is stressed. In the latter case, the aim is to elucidate how important it is for archaeologists to look upon the material world as something that must be evaluated holistically. Material culture is hereby considered as something that exists in borh the natural and the cultural environment. A clear distinction between nature, landscapes and artefacts is therefore hard to make, and consequently not a prior goal of description either. To get around this discrepancy between artefactual and environmental archaeology, the question of how people use their worlds is raised, a question that archaeology alone cannot answer, but hopefully together with other long-term human-ecological approaches.