My research explores the evolutionary ecology of human life history, sociality, economics, and health. My goal is to explain the origin of those traits that define our species, and to explain variation in behavior and physiology and across human and non-human primate societies.

This work combines theoretical modeling with ethnographic field research and cross-cultural analysis. I have a number of other academic interests, including population history, and the role of the adaptive stress response in health and disease.

I do fieldwork with the Tsimane', a group native to the Bolivian Amazon. (Click here to read a short piece I wrote on the Tsimane' in spring 2010.)

courses

Students of Anth 160: Click here for the course website.

In spring 2010 I co-tought a new course with George Bezerra (Computer Science) and Wenyun Zuo (Biology) entitled Networks: An introduction to network theory and its applications in social, biological, and technological systems. Click here to access the online course syllabus.

publications

Paul L. Hooper "Modeling the evolution of religious institutions." Religion Brain and Behavior, in press.

Paul L. Hooper "Socioecology of networks." Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History, in press. link

Michael Gurven, Hillard S. Kaplan, Jonathan Stieglitz & Paul L. Hooper "From the womb to the tomb: The role of transfers in shaping the evolved human life history." Experimental Journal of Gerontology, in press.

Timothy A. Kohler, Denton Cockburn, Paul L. Hooper, Kyle Bocinsky, and Ziad Kobti (2012) "The coevolution of group size and leadership: An agent-based public goods model for prehispanic Pueblo societies." Advances in Complex Systems 15(1-2). pdf

Paul L. Hooper (2011) The structure of energy production and redistribution among Tsimane' forager-horticulturalists. PhD Dissertation, Evolutionary Anthropology, University of New Mexico. link

Paul L. Hooper, Hillard S. Kaplan, and James L. Boone (2010) "A theory of leadership in human cooperative groups." Journal of Theoretical Biology 265(4), 633-646. pdf

Philip L. Hooper, Paul L. Hooper, Michael Tytell and László Vígh (2010) "Xenohormesis: Health benefits from an eon of plant stress response evolution." Cell Stress and Chaperones, 15(6), 761-770. pdf

Hillard S. Kaplan, Michael Gurven, Jeffrey Winking, Paul L. Hooper and Jonathan Stieglitz (2010) "Learning, menopause, and the human adaptive complex." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1204, 30-42. pdf

Michael Gurven, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Paul L. Hooper, Hillard Kaplan, Robert Quinlan, Rebecca Sear, Eric Schniter, Christopher von Rueden, Samuel Bowles, Tom Hertz, and Adrian Bell (2010) "Domestication alone does not lead to inequality: Intergenerational wealth transmission among horticulturalists." Current Anthropology 51(1), 49-64. pdf  See the other articles in the CA special issue here: web link

Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Samuel Bowles, Tom Hertz, Adrian Bell, Jan Beise, Greg Clark, Ila Fazzio, Michael Gurven, Kim Hill, Paul L. Hooper, William Irons, Hillard Kaplan, Donna Leonetti, Bobbi Low, Frank Marlowe, Richard McElreath, Suresh Naidu, David Nolin, Patrizio Piraino, Rob Quinlan, Eric Schniter, Rebecca Sear, Mary Shenk, Eric Alden Smith, Christopher von Rueden and Polly Wiessner (2009) "Intergenerational wealth transmission and the dynamics of inequality in small-scale societies." Science 326(5953), 682-688. web link  Online supplement: pdf  See Acemoglu and Robinson's perspectives piece here: link

Hillard S. Kaplan, Paul L. Hooper and Michael Gurven (2009) "The evolutionary and ecological roots of human social organization." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 364(1533), 3289-3299. pdf audio

Philip L. Hooper and Paul L. Hooper (2009) "Inflammation, heat shock proteins, and type 2 diabetes." Cell Stress and Chaperones 14(2), 113-115. pdf

Paul L. Hooper and Geoffrey F. Miller (2008) “Mutual mate choice can drive costly signaling even under perfect monogamy." Adaptive Behavior 16(1), 53-70. pdf  Supplementary table: pdf

Paul L. Hooper (2003) Forced population transfers in early Ottoman imperial strategy: A comparative approach. Senior Thesis, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University. pdf