Changing Climate, Human Evolution, and the Revival of Environmental Determinism

The role of climatic change in determining the shape of human evolution, a theme that came to prominence during the early years of the twentieth century, has resurfaced with renewed vigor. The author examines the rise and resurgence of the modern history of the idea that hominid evolutionary pathways have been trigged by climatic causes to illustrate the continuing vitality of environmental determinism and to highlight some continuities between early-twentieth-century and contemporary archaeoanthropology.