Roots and Meaning of Culture

As Chapter 1 and Figure 1.3 discussed, geography draws upon and integrates data from a number of sister disciplines to document and support the insights geography itself develops. Both the original contributions of geography and their factual dependence on other fields of research are clearly evident in the subject matter of this chapter dealing with culture, innovation, and diffusion. For example, many of the classical cultural geographic concepts of landscape, culture hearths, agricultural origins, and cultural ecology developed and refined by geographers depend for their data and documentation on research by scholars in such other disciplines as archaeology, ethnobotany, plant genetics, etc. Few, if any, websites exist specifically devoted to the individual topics of this chapter. However, some Internet addresses that may provide links to the literature of allied fields pertinent to those topics are indicated here.

   The collection of Internet environment and ecology sites is large and growing; it is in part reviewed in the On-Line discussion of Chapter 13. Few have relevance for our culture history or cultural ecology discussions here, but some useful links are included in the location Landscape ecology & biogeography maintained by Australia's Charles Sturt University: www.csu.edu.au/landscape_ecology/landscape.html.

The Ancient World Web is the highly rated work of Julia Hayden; a well-organized, comprehensive resource "for scholars, teachers, and students," it includes both subject and geographical indexes, an information exchange, and links to related Internet resources: www.julen.net/ancient/.

        The University of Evansville hosts a similar site, Exploring Ancient World Cultures, at http://eawc.evansville.edu/. The EAWC is an on-line resource for the study of ancient societies with extensive Internet links and connection with the Argos Project search engine. Washington State University presents World Cultures, "an on-line research textbook of world cultures and histories" that includes internet resource directories on its specific cultures and eras pages: www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/.

        Academic Info is a directory of Internet resources designed for college student study needs. Its extensive Main Subject Index at www.academicinfo.net/table.html includes "anthropology," and "archeology" among topics of interest to this chapter.

        The World Wide Web Virtual Library listings on various topics provide website access to resources of interest. The "library" for Anthropology is sponsored by Anthro TECH at http://vlib.anthrotech.com/ and that for Archaeology is maintained by ArchNet at the University of Connecticut: http://archnet.uconn.edu/.

        Another server with multiple subject entries worth a look at is Alan Liu's Voice of the Shuttle pages for humanities research: http://vos.ucsb.edu/

        The World Wide Web Virtual Library listings on various topics provide website access to resources of interest. The "library" for Anthropology is sponsored by Anthro TECH at www.anthrotech.com/resources/ and that for Archaeology is maintained by ArchNet at the University of Connecticut: http://archnet.uconn.edu/.