answers.input_text: short
answers.span_text: Marshall Sahlins
questions: who laid the foundation of school of possibilism
name: Possibilism (geography)
contexts: Possibilism in cultural geography is the theory that the environment sets certain constraints or limitations , but culture is otherwise determined by social conditions . In Cultural ecology Marshall Sahlins used this concept in order to develop alternative approaches to the environmental determinism dominant at that time in ecological studies . Theory by Strabo in 64 BC that humans can make things happen by their own intelligence over time . Strabo cautioned against the assumption that nature and actions of humans were determined by the physical environment they inhabited . He observed that humans were the active elements in a human - environmental partnership .