in the 1950s, dissatisfaction with existing vague and rigid theories of cultural change stimulated adoption of an ecological perspective. This new perspective considers the role of the physical environment in cultural change in a more sophisticated manner than environmental determinism (see the work of Julian Steward and the Cultural Ecolog web page at Ecological anthropology is also a reaction to ideausm, which is the idea that alu objects in nature and experience are representations of the mind. Ecological anthropology inherently opposes the notion that ideas drive all human activities and existence. This particular field illustrates a turn toward the study of the material conditions of environment, which have the potential to affect ideas. Furthermore the Steward was disillusioned with historical particularism and culture area approach and he subsequently emphasized environmental influences on culture and cultural evolution (Barfield 1997:aa8). Boas and his students (representing historical particularism) argued that cultures a unique and cannot be compared (Barfield 1997:491). In response, Steward's methodological approach to multilinear evolution called for a detailed comparison of a of cultures that were at the same level of sociocultural small number integration and in similar environments, yet vastly separated geographically (Barfield 1997 aa9) During the 1960s, a shift in focus occurred ecological anthropology because of changing trends and in interamtinns ithin the obal system. According to Kottak (1999), localized groups were no longer