Small-scale societies and environmental transformations : coevolutionary dynamics

Abstract

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552

This editorial introduces the special feature of Ecology and Society entitled Small-Scale Societies and Environmental Transformations: Coevolutionary Dynamics. The contributions to this feature explore coevolutionary dynamics developed between small-scale societies and environmental features and the larger-scale effects of these interactions in spatial and chronological terms. Acknowledging the importance of small-scale societies in our evolutionary past and nowadays, contributions to this issue use insights from both archaeological and anthropological case studies, concepts, and methods. This editorial introduces the contributions in three different ways. We start by reviewing the use of the term "small-scale society" in the literature. Then, we briefly examine the concept of "co-evolutionary dynamics" by providing examples of how the process operates between past and present small-scale societies and their surrounding environments. In the last section, we introduce each of the papers.