The basic assumptions of Human Evolutionary Ecology (HEE) are derived from the field of evolutionary behavioral ecology, developed in biology but increasingly employed in the social and biological sciences. These assumptions rest on an evolutionary ecology model of individual life histories that are viewed as a series of adaptive tradeoffs between competing demands for such major tasks as growth, development, the finding of mates, reproduction, investment in offspring, and the timing of events throughout the life course. Our program is designed to produce scholars who contribute both to the basic explanation of human and non-human primate behavioral variation and to the understanding of contemporary population problems such as conservation of the environment, aging, the demographic and epidemiological transitions, divorce and child support, parental investment and disinvestment, teen pregnancy, sex differences in mortality, social display, and conflict and warfare.

The main goal of the HEE program is to train students to develop and test explanatory models of behavioral and physiological variation that help elucidate these problems. These goals commit us to the use of scientific methods in which alternative explanations for observed behavioral patterns are developed in hypothetical form, and observations that would put alternatives at risk of rejection are specified. Data are collected that could potentially lead us to reject one or more alternative hypotheses.

The Human Evolutional Ecology program is part of the Human Evolutionary and Behavioral Sciences (HEBS) Network that links research across Anthropology, Biology and Psychology. Students take 8 designated core courses from the three departments combined with more electives as appropriate to the student's specialized interests.

Graduate degrees offered: MA or MS in Anthropology; PhD in Anthropology.

Human Evolutionary Ecology Faculty
Boone, James (PhD SUNY-Binghamton)
Research Interests include archaeology, evolutionary ecology, complex societies; Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, Medieval Period. Current research: Development of economic and ecological models for the formation of social hierarchies and social stratification; rural settlement and Islamization in the medieval period of the Iberian Peninsula
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Kaplan, Hillard (PhD Utah)
Research Interests include evolutionary ecology, subsistence behavior, sex roles, hunters and gatherers; South America, Africa. Current research: Comparative research on lowland South American horticulturalists in Peru and tribal peoples of South Africa, with emphasis on nutrition, fertility and reproduction, parental investment patterns; male marital and reproductive histories in contemporary US. He is director of a research project called The Tsimane Project.
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Lancaster, Jane (PhD UC-Berkeley)
Research Interests include primate social behavior, evolution of human behavior, reproductive biology, parental investment, life history. Current research: Editor of the journal, Human Nature: A Biosocial, Interdisciplinary Perspective and research on reproductive behavior and parental investment among humans, especially in the South West
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