Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America

A. L. Kroeber

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9780520333826
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Alfred L. Kroeber's Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America represents a pioneering approach to understanding the cultural and environmental dynamics of Native North America. Initially published in 1939, this seminal work introduced an ecological perspective in the study of Indigenous cultures, distinguishing it from earlier environmental theories and situating it within broader, evolving landscapes and resource use. Kroeber's insights into "culture areas" and the delineation of cultural boundaries underscore a revolutionary shift in how American Indian studies approached cultural-environmental relations, a methodology later foundational in anthropological research. Through a meticulous synthesis of cultural traits and ecological zones, Kroeber established new methodologies that clarified the complexity and variety within Indigenous societies, marking this volume as a landmark in American anthropology. In this detailed volume, Kroeber also proposes innovative concepts such as "cultural climax" and the significance of tribal boundaries shaped by watersheds rather than rivers, providing a fresh lens to interpret Indigenous territoriality and resource management. Notably, the publication includes the first comprehensive North American tribal boundary map, an essential resource for subsequent research and legal inquiries into Indigenous land claims. With extensive collaborations from prominent American field researchers, Kroeber's work in Cultural and Natural Areas integrates an unprecedented array of cultural data, shaping subsequent generations of ecological and ethnographic studies. Even in the face of advancing data and revised interpretations, Kroeber's foundational text remains a classic, celebrated for its methodological rigor and visionary scope in American anthropology. This title was originally published in 1963.
Alfred L. Kroeber's Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America represents a pioneering approach to understanding the cultural and environmental dynamics of Native North America. Initially published in 1939, this seminal work introduced an ecologic

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• CULTURAL AND NATURAL AREAS OF NATIVE NORTH AMERICA
• II. HISTORY OF CONCEPTS
• III. TRIBAL AREAS
• IV. VEGETATION AREAS
• V. CULTURE AREAS: ARCTIC COAST
• VI. CULTURE AREAS: NORTHWEST COAST
• VII. CULTURE AREAS: SOUTHWEST
• VIII. CULTURE AREAS: INTERMEDIATE AND INTERMOUNTAIN AREAS
• IX. CULTURE AREAS: EAST AND NORTH Eastern Areas
• X. CULTURE AREAS: MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
• XI. POPULATION166
• XII. PHYSIOGRAPHIC AREAS
• XII. RELATIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND CULTURAL FACTORS
• XIV. AGRICULTURE
• XV. CULTURAL INTENSITY AND CLIMAX THE EIGHTY-FOUR AREAS into which the continent has been divided in the foregoing discussion, and in map 6 and table 18, are cultural in the sense that, within each, culture is relatively uniform. Many of them also approximate natural areas; that is, they often possess one or more features, such as drainage, elevation, land form, climate, or plant cover, which also are relatively uniform over the tract, or alter at its borders. They are, further, historical areas, in that their relations with one another reflect currents or growths of culture, as soon as the areas are viewed not as equivalents but as differing in intensity or level. The ten or so larger culture areas hitherto customarily recognized differ from one another essentially in culture material or content; consideration of differences in level has usually been avoided as subjective or unscientific. The more numerous areas dealt with in the present work are in part based avowedly on culture intensity as well as content.
• INDEX