I.  Attain critical understanding of issues and concepts relevant
to the ecological analysis of the formation, maintenance and 
change of human social groups.

II.  Understanding the linkage between actors operating within 
culture and the influence culture has on actors.

III.  Conversance with the strengths and limitations of 
contemporary approaches and the potential for future development 
of the area.

I.  Epistemological foundations

  A.  Defining structure and culture: monistic and dualistic 
      modes of explanation
  B.  The functionalist paradigm and the concept of adaptation
  C.  The nature of causality in base/superstructure models
  D.  Levels of analysis and emergent properties
  E.  Structure and event.

II.  The elements of human social group formation in ecological 
     perspective

  A.  Resources and work:  optimal foraging, dietary intake, 
      time allocation
  B.  Reproduction and relations:  mating strategies, parenting 
      conflicts, sharing, collective action, conflict
  C.  The concept of the corporation and the constitution of 
      corporate groups
  D.  Spatial organization:  resources, ethnicity, commons, 
      territoriality

III.  Social production and reproduction:  structural Marxist 
      perspectives

  A.  The domestic and political domains
  B.  The meanings of social and cultural reproduction
  C.  "Vulgar materialism" or the structural Marxist critique of 
      cultural ecology
  D.  Social organization as mode of production
  E.  The significance of exchange: marriage, goods and 
      materials, information

IV.  Four contemporary populations

 A.  Foragers and the creation of multiple-use parks
 B.  Pastoralists:  the response to drought-uncertainty
 C.  Agriculturalists and the dwindling of tropical rain forests
 D.  Industrial society and the limits of human endeavor