An ecological evolutionary viewpoint offers new perspectives on contemporary demographic problems in general and on population-environment issues in particular. In turn, rich and detailed human demographic data can help solve problems of interest in evolutionary theory. Such data have been analyzed in greatest detail in studies of traditional and historical societies. Evolutionary approaches using historical data go beyond small-sample anthropological studies to the application of the evolutionary approach to large datasets, and illuminate important similarities between small-scale traditional societies and large modern populations living in evolutionarily novel environments. This article provides a concise update of the breadth of questions and hypotheses of likely interest to demographers and others that evolutionary theorists address using a variety of traditional and historical datasets. It suggests opportunities for additional collaborative work between evolutionary theorists and historical demographers and highlights topics relevant to modern demography. Copyright 2001 by The Population Council, Inc..
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.