Szabó Péter
Department of Vegetation Ecology, Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Lidická 25/27, Brno CZ-60200, Czech Republic.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2015 Nov;90(4):997-1014. doi: 10.1111/brv.12141. Epub 2014 Aug 30.
The term 'historical ecology' has been used with various meanings since the first half of the 20th century. Studies labelled as historical ecology have been produced in at least four academic disciplines: history, ecology, geography and anthropology. Although all those involved seem to agree that historical ecology concerns the historical interconnectedness of nature and human culture, this field of study has no unified methodology, specialized institutional background and common publication forums. Knowledge of the development of historical ecology is also limited. As a result, the current multitude of definitions of historical ecology is accompanied by divergent opinions as to where the origins of the field are to be sought. In this review, I follow the development of historical ecology from the 18th century to the present. In the first part, I briefly describe some early examples of historical ecological investigations, followed by a description of the various scientific strands in the 20th century that contributed to the formation of historical ecology. In the second part, I discuss the past five decades of historical ecological investigations in more detail, focusing mostly (but not exclusively) on works that their respective authors identified as historical ecology. I also examine the appearance and interconnectedness of the two main trends (ecological and anthropological) in historical ecological research. In the last part, I attempt to outline the future of historical ecology based on common features in existing research. It appears that at present historical ecology is at a crossroads. With rapidly growing interest in historical ecological research, it may move towards institutionalization or remain an umbrella term.
自20世纪上半叶以来，“历史生态学”一词就被赋予了各种含义。至少在四个学术学科中产生了被标记为历史生态学的研究：历史、生态学、地理学和人类学。尽管所有相关人员似乎都同意历史生态学关注自然与人类文化的历史关联性，但这一研究领域没有统一的方法论、专门的制度背景和共同的出版论坛。对历史生态学发展的了解也很有限。因此，当前众多的历史生态学定义伴随着关于该领域起源应在何处寻找的不同观点。在这篇综述中，我追溯历史生态学从18世纪至今的发展历程。在第一部分，我简要描述一些历史生态调查的早期例子，接着描述20世纪促成历史生态学形成的各种科学脉络。在第二部分，我更详细地讨论过去五十年来的历史生态调查，主要（但不限于）关注其各自作者认定为历史生态学的著作。我还考察了历史生态研究中两种主要趋势（生态的和人类学的）的出现及相互联系。在最后一部分，我试图根据现有研究的共同特征勾勒历史生态学的未来。目前看来，历史生态学正处于十字路口。随着对历史生态研究的兴趣迅速增长，它可能走向制度化，或者仍然是一个总括性术语。
