There is a fully-funded PhD position at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology to pursue dissertation research among the Mayangna of Nicaragua, expanding a longitudinal study of subsistence strategies and behavioral ecology. Please share the posting!
www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...
Final version of this paper is now published. Find out what the microfinance literature can tell us about the evolution of human cooperation
New preprint with Rafael Leite, Sandro Reia and Paulo Campos
Cumulative Cultural Evolution in Structured Populations
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
In which we take an old model of cumulative cultural evolution of mine and see what happens if you add social networks
Would love to some day!
We have New Zealand flax growing in our garden in Cornwall due to past colonial misadventures. Never seen it in its native environment!
I took the German or Autistic diagnostic. Result: Both. The Wittgenstein Result. I don't know whether to be proud or concerned. german.millermanschool.com
Nice study! The finding that bidirectional social learning is bad in changing environments reminds me of Rogers' paradox (Rogers 1988)
anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
and your solutions remind me of
anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
I am reminded by this critique of a computational social science conference I went to not long ago, where many of the talks were along the lines of 'humans do X, so we tested different LLMs on X too to see if they can do it', without much theoretical justification or consequence
I'm hiring! 📢 Fully funded 4-year PhD position in Language Evolution using Communication Games at @mpi-nl.bsky.social. Come work with me on how different social pressures shape the evolution of new communication systems in the lab! Deadline for application is May 18th! share.google/fGTKbFS4v4Gb...
The call for the PhD programme in Sociology and Social Research at Trento is out, with deadline 14 May.
Interested in a PhD in cultural evolution / social media / cultural analytics? Get in touch!
www.unitn.it/en/phd/socio...
New paper out in Evolutionary Human Sciences (unformatted early access):
Testing Evolutionary Theories of Human Cooperation via Meta-Analysis of Microfinance Repayment
with Dougie Foster, Shakti Lamba & @erikpostma.bsky.social
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
New paper out in Evolutionary Human Sciences (unformatted early access):
Testing Evolutionary Theories of Human Cooperation via Meta-Analysis of Microfinance Repayment
with Dougie Foster, Shakti Lamba & @erikpostma.bsky.social
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
This project (with Stacy Rosenbaum and Nick Grebe) began in the dark days of Covid, and is finally ready to share. We've built a living database of primate paternity data (52 species, 3000 paternities) and completed first wave of analyses of paternity distribution. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
New masters programme in Evolutionary Anthropology - University of Leipzig & Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, teaching in English www.uni-leipzig.de/en/studying/... #EHBEA
The preliminary programme for @ces2026.bsky.social is now out. What a fabulous line up!
airess.fgses-um6p.ma/CES2026?__cf...
Interested in the weirdness that is humanity? Ever suspect human evolution itself may be changing? Join my colloquium at the KLI in Austria to learn about:
The Science of an Evolutionary Transition in Humans
kli.ac.at/en/events/ev...
(3pm CET, 9am US Eastern, on zoom and live)
Very good attempt to quantify how powerful an engine of ecological adaptation cultural evolution is: “Cultural evolution accelerated human range expansion by more than two orders of magnitude” 🧪
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Interested in the Big Questions of human evolution, culture and society? In the Vienna area?
Come join my colloquium at the Konrad Lorenz Institute on March 26 at 15:00. I will be speaking on:
The Science of an Evolutionary Transition in Humans
kli.ac.at/en/events/ev...
Also online.
With @saramitri.bsky.social, @sonjalehtinen.bsky.social and L. Lehmann we’ve launched the UNIL Center for Theory in Ecology and Evolution @unil.bsky.social🇨🇭
To kick things off, we’re offering short visiting fellowships for theorists in ecology & evolution. Apply & pls RP 😀
tinyurl.com/2wem36zz
Sure. It's a very nice study, I'm just not sure it tells us much about what makes human social learning interesting
For learning where to forage in a competitive task, at least
Transmission of human handedness: a reanalysis | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core - www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
We're pleased to announce the call for the 2026 Richerson Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research, for a recent PhD dissertation that significantly contributes to the field of CE.
Recipients receive a $300 award, a 3-yr CES membership and CES conference registration.
forms.gle/p4MqcskCs2Yz...
🚀 Postdoc Alert! Are you passionate about social learning & cultural evolution? @dominikdeffner.bsky.social & I have a 3-year position with freedom to develop your research and work on cutting-edge multiplayer and immersive experiments. Apply by March 30! hmc-lab.com/SocialLearni... Pls share 🙏
From Apr 1, 2026, I’ll launch my own lab at Tohoku University as an Assistant Professor!
I’m happy to host applicants for the JSPS International Postdoc Fellowships.
If you’re interested in mathematical models of human history, feel free to DM me!
Front cover of my book, titled "Comparative musicology: Evolution, universals, and the science of the world's music" (published today by Oxford University Press)
1st of my 4-page essay published in Nature today titled "Music is not a universal language - but it can bring us together when words fail" Picture caption: "Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny (centre) performed in Spanish at the half-time show of the 2026 American Football Super Bowl LX."
My book is now published! 🌏🎶🧪
You can download it for free at academic.oup.com/book/62353 - I’d be grateful if you do!
I also published an accessible summary with audio/video today in @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Try reading that first, then give the whole book a read if you like it!
The Culture Conference 2026 is already starting next week! 🥳
If you plan to attend in-person, please register ‼️before Sunday 22/02‼️
We are almost full, so don’t wait 😊
Online registration will remain open 💻
See you next week in Utrecht 🌇
To register:👇
culture-conference.com/registration/
My kind of papers.
"Can LLMs Cook Jamaican Couscous? A Study of Cultural Novelty in Recipe Generation"
arxiv.org/pdf/2602.10964
