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Diffusion, Biological Determinism, and Biocultural Adaptation in the Nubian Corridor
Author(s) -
Carlson David S.,
Gerven Dennis P.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1979.81.3.02a00030
Subject(s) - adaptation (eye) , determinism , geography , perspective (graphical) , displacement (psychology) , history , ethnology , prehistory , natural (archaeology) , anthropology , sociology , archaeology , epistemology , biology , art , philosophy , psychology , neuroscience , visual arts , psychotherapist
Nubia's position both geographically and historically made it a natural laboratory for application of a historical diffusionist paradigm. That approach, which dominated research on Nubia before 1960, led to a view of Nubian culture history as a series of disconnected episodes, each characterized by the migration, displacement, or hybridization of differing racial stocks. The International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, begun in 1960, provided a new view of Nubian history, emphasizing both cultural and biological continuity since earliest times. From that perspective, it has become possible to reconsider the forces of biological and cultural change in the Nubian corridor over the past 12,000 years, and to propose that the most reasonable explanation for biocultural change in the Nubia is in situ evolution. [Nubia, biological determinism, biocultural adaptation, diffusionism]