Expanding One Health: The role of culture and the long term

Abstract

Here we address some dimensions of One Health that are not usually dealt with. One is its long-term nature, including the evolutionary scale. Its spatial scale is also relevant. The cultural dimension of health and disease is also of uttermost relevance to fully address the complexities of One Health. By focusing on inherited landscapes and on the modified selective pressures resulting from intergenerational relationships in populations, Niche Construction Theory allows the discussion of both the cultural and biological dimensions of human behaviour and its interactions with other species. Archaeology, at the crossroads of social, natural and historical sciences, is in an optimal position to allow integrating this theoretical background and the long-term and large spatial scales, as well as the cultural and natural aspects of health, into a consistent framework. We illustrate this view with the bearing of the human peopling of South America for regional One Health.