Definition
The various environmental conditions and forces that ultimately guided and shaped the evolution of humans.
Introduction
Environmental changes can be fatal to any biological life form. Each and every living organism is essentially a biological response to both its ancestral and present environmental pressures. Every facet of the environment and climate can influence an organism’s nature, and many anthropologists claim that the human species is a result of an extensive and diverse environmental history. Evolutionary theory is founded upon an organism’s ability to adapt to its environment, whether natural or artificial. Evolutionary psychology assesses both prehistoric and present environmental conditions, which contribute to the development of the field’s hypotheses and theories.
General Climates and Habitats of Human Evolution
Prehi...
References
Elton, S. (2008). The environmental context in human evolutionary history in Eurasia and Africa. Journal of Anatomy, 212(4), 377–393. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7580.2008.00872.x.
Harari, Y. (2015). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. New York: HarperCollins.
National Research Council. (2010). Understanding climate’s influence on human evolution. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/12825.
Pinker, S. (2016). The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature. New York: Penguin Books.
Potts, R. (1998). Environmental hypotheses of hominin evolution. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 41, 93–136. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(1998)107:27+3.0.CO;2-X.
Potts, R. (2016). Human evolution research: Climate effects on human evolution. Smithsonian Natural Museum of Natural History. Retrieved on 1 July 2016 from http://humanorigins.si.edu/research/climate-and-human-evolution/climate-effects-human-evolution
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this entry
Cite this entry
Holler, R. (2018). Climate and Habitat Diversity. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_348-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_348-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences