In the first half of the 20th century, the cultural sciences were dominated by possibilism, which viewed the natural environment as a passive foundation on which various types of human societies could emerge and develop. The natural environment plays only a limiting role - it is recognized as an essential factor in explaining why some cultural phenomena are absent, but it does not explain why they occur.
After the Second World War, possibilism was replaced by ecological anthropology explaining the interrelationship between the natural environment and cultures. The term "ecological anthropology" was introduced in 1955 by the American anthropologist M. Bates. Ecological anthropology differed from classical versions of geographical determinism in two ways. First, the interaction between nature and culture was analyzed, i.e. the influence of culture, even at the pre-industrial level, on the ecological environment was taken into account. Secondly, the environment was considered only from the point of view of resources and conditions used by man, and not as a set of all natural features of this or that territory.
Ecological anthropology distinguishes several approaches to the study of the interaction between nature and culture. The most common approach is related to the research of J. Stewart (1902-1972). Its concept was called cultural ecology. The main focus of the concept is the study of society's adaptation to the environment. Its main purpose is to find out whether internal social changes of evolutionary character begin with adaptation. Cultural adaptation is a continuous process, as no culture has adapted so completely to the environment as to become static. The concept of "cultural type", defined as the set of features forming the core of culture, plays an essential role in J. Stewart's theory. These features arise as a consequence of the adaptation of culture to the environment and characterize the same level of integration. The core of culture is a set of features that are most directly related to the activity on the production of means of subsistence and the economic structure of society. In addition, the nucleus of culture also includes social, political and religious institutions that interact closely with livelihood production. J. Stewart's ideas were further developed in the works of M. Salins, D. Bennett and R. Netting, representatives of American cultural anthropology.
The cultural and ecological approach of M. Salins was significantly supplemented. He suggested that socio-cultural parameters, such as the influence of other communities that come into contact with the study, should be attributed to the environment, as well as taking into account the fact that culture, transforming the landscape in the process of adaptation, has to adapt to the changes that it itself initiated.
The cultural ecology of J. Stewart was the theoretical foundation for the ecology of religion of O. Hultkrantz. The cultural and ecological approach interacts with environmental psychology, cultural geography (USA), social geography (Western Europe) and interdisciplinary field of research "human ecology".
In the 60's - 70's in the USA the ecosystem or population anthropology appeared, which included in the field of researches of an individual from the point of view of his biological and demographic features. In the field of theory, this approach differs in its functionalism, i.e. in the study of the regularities of the systems that combine natural and socio-cultural phenomena. The most important representatives of ecosystem anthropology are E. Waide and R. Rappaport. The main object of their research is human populations. The main task is to explain the action of those mechanisms in culture that constantly support the ecosystem under study in the state of homeostasis, or dynamic balance. R. Rappaport proposed to subdivide the concept of "environment" into the concepts of "real" and "perceived", or "cognitive", in other words, available in the concept of the studied people.