Julian Steward attempts to examine the relationship between culture and local ecology by proposing that the two concepts are inherently linked. In essence, Steward suggests that the development of culture is directly affected by the ecology of an area and that cultural ecology should be the study of this relationship. Many aspects of a culture can be traced back to some form of environmental root, such as the abundance and type of food available in an area. Steward supports his claim by providing generalized examples from a variety of different cultures and suggests that anthropologists should consider viewing culture through an environmental lens. One example is that of the Shoshoni’s social structure of fairly independent family units, which is interpreted to be due to a lack of consistent food supply and game. In Steward’s idea of cultural ecology, one would examine a culture’s behaviors and extrapolate the causes of these behaviors through inference based upon possible environmental factors. The main problem with this concept is that the inference draws from the observer’s personal, often Western, background and does not consider the possibility of other worldviews, particularly that of the observed culture, and thus may result in misinterpretations. This problem is addressed many years later by the concept of ethnoecology.