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Marcus John Hamilton
Academic Positions
2010-present Postdoctoral Fellow, Santa Fe Institute
2008-present Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, University of New Mexico
2008-2011 Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biology, University of New Mexico
Academic History
2002-2008 Ph.D. (distinction), Anthropology, University of New Mexico
2000-2002 M.S. (distinction), Anthropology, University of New Mexico
1995-1998 B.Sc. (1st class), Archaeology, University College London
Contact details
mail: Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Rd, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 87501 USA
email: marcusj@unm.edu, marcusj@santafe.edu
phone (SFI): 505 984 2786
Research interests: Human ecology, evolutionary anthropology, archaeology, economics, and ecology; complex adaptive systems; human macroecology and biogeography; hunter-gatherers; Paleoindians; colonization of the Americas; dynamics of cities and nations; behavioral ecology; metabolic ecology; life history theory; population dynamics and organization; biological and cultural diversity; nonequilibrium systems.I have a broad background in evolutionary anthropology, archaeology, and theoretical ecology. My research addresses the general mechanisms that have shaped the evolution of human ecology in the past, present, and future, from hunter-gatherer societies, to contemporary industrialized nation states. I work at multiple scales, from life history theory and behavioral ecology, to population dynamics and biogeography. My research emphasizes theory building and data analysis in equal parts and combines aspects of the physical, life, and social sciences. I am interested both in the theoretical understanding of the evolutionary ecology of complex human systems, but also in the applied role anthropological science can play in understanding the potential trajectories of human societies into the future.
I received my B.Sc. from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London in 1998. At the University of New Mexico I worked on a PhD with James Boone and Bruce Huckell focusing on human evolutionary ecology and anthropological archaeology. During graduate school I became increasingly involved with the Department of Biology at UNM where I worked with James Brown and Bruce Milne to use macroecological principles to explore variation in ethnographic hunter-gatherer societies. This work quickly developed into a broader interest in human macroecology, and the general energetics of human-ecosystem interactions through time and space. After graduating with my PhD, I became a postdoctoral fellow in the Program for Interdisciplinary Biological and Biomedical Sciences in the Department of Biology at UNM, directed by Felisa Smith and James Brown where I worked on various topics in macroecology and paleoecology. Currently, I am a postdoctoral fellow in the scaling group at the Santa Fe Institute working with Geoffrey West and Luis Bettencourt on the dynamics of cities, firms, and markets, dominant features of contemporary human ecology. The goal of this work is to develop general quantitative theory that integrates these fundamental features of contemporary human societies, based ultimately on fundamental scientific principles. Also, I am an adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology and an affiliated researcher in the Program for Interdisciplinary Biological and Biomedical Sciences at UNM.
I have published 50 papers in journals including PNAS, Science, Proc B, Science, BioScence, PLoS ONE, Scientific Reports, Biological Reviews, American Antiquity, Current Anthropology, Journal of Archaeological Science, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology and elsewhere. My research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the McDonnell Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Templeton Foundation, Boeing, the University of New Mexico, and the Santa Fe Institute.
