Peregrine, P. N.

Introduction: Wilson and colleagues have provided an important and thought-provoking discussion of how the cultural ecosystem approach might inform the study of religious diversity. In doing so they also critically examine the “axis” approach to cross-cultural research and make a case for developing field sites for implementing studies of cultural ecosystems. They discuss the work of not only cultural anthropologists, but evolutionary biologists, psychologists, sociologists, and macrohistorians. A surprising oversight is their failure to discuss the work of archaeologists, who have long employed a cultural ecosystem framework, who have implemented and critically assessed “axis” approaches to cross-cultural research, and who have developed a number of important field sites that continue to be the locus of research on the evolution and ongoing processes of cultural ecosystems.