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Human Evolutionary Ecology Group
The Human Evolutionary Ecology Group, located in the Department of Anthropology at UCL and led by Ruth Mace, is one of the largest groups of researchers investigating human evolutionary ecology in the UK. We study human behaviour and life history as adaptations to local environments - which includes not only human behavioural ecology but also evolutionary demography and cultural evolution. Areas of interest include human reproductive scheduling and life history, patterns of parental investment, the origins of human marriage and kinship systems, cultural phylogenetics and the evolution of social institutions, and the evolutionary ecology of co-operation. We are running a range of projects including those based on field studies ranging from traditional rural African and Asian populations to post-industrial, urban populations in the UK and Europe, and some that are making use of existing historical or modern medical or demographic datasets.
Our funders include the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council, UNFPA, the Leverhulme Trust, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the FCT, the British Academy, the Royal Society and the European Research Council.
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List of Publications
Research Topics
- The evolution of cultural norms in real world settings
- The evolutionary ecology of matrilineal kinship
- The evolutionary ecology of contraception and fertility decline
- Co-operation and competition in rural Gambian households
- Family structure and child development in UK children
- The dynamics of cultural difference and cultural integration: the case of religious groups in Northern Ireland
- The evolution of lactose tolerance in a mixed population in Chile
- Hunter-gatherer life history and genetics
Funders
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Staff
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Ruth Mace Email | Website Publications |
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Andrea Migliano Email | Website Publications |
Post-Doc Researchers
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Heidi Colleran Research Interests: |
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Kit Opie Research Interests: |
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Hannah Lewis Research Interests: |
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Jiajia Wu Research Interests: |
PhD Students
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Antonio Silva Research Interests: |
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Matthew G. Thomas Research Interests: |
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Bram van Leeuwen Research Interests: |
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Myrtille Guillon Research Interests: |
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Nicolas Montalva Research Interests: |
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Abigail Page Research Interests: |
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Mark Dyble Research Interests: |
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Dan Smith Research Interests: |
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Juan Du Research Interests: |
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Gul Deniz Salali Research Interests: |
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Nikhil Chaudhary Research Interests: |
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Sarah Peacey Research Interests: |
Collaborators
- Daryl Shanley (University of Newcastle)
- Ting Ji (Theoretical Ecology Group, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing - University of Beijing)
- Marius warg Naess (Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Norway)
- Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)
- Professor Yi Tao, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PRC
Previous Members
- Caroline Uggla (University of Bristol)
- Emily Emmott (The Children’s Society, London)
- Antonio Silva (The Behavioural Insights Team, London)
- Nicolas Montalva (University of Chile)
- Tom Currie (University of Exeter)
- David Lawson (London School Of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
- Shakti Lamba (University of Exeter)
- Alexandra Alvergne (University of Oxford)
- Rebecca Sear (London School Of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
- Fiona Jordan (University of Bristol)
- Mhairi Gibson (University of Bristol)
- Alejandra Nunez-de-la-Mora (Durham University)
- Gillian Bentley (Durham University)
- Laura Fortunato (Santa Fe Institute)
- Eshetu Gurmu (University of Addis Ababa)
12/2015
Ruth
has been appointed as the incoming President of EHBEA (the European Human
Behaviour and Evolution Association). She will be President from
2016-2019.
UCL has set up a new website covering all those that are working in human evolution at UCL. www.ucl.ac.uk/human-evolution
Congratulations
to Matt Thomas who has successfully completed his viva. Examiners John Ziker and Nichola Raihani passed him without
corrections!
10/2015
New paper has been published in
nature communications by Jiajia Wu, Ting Ji, QiaoQiao He, Juan Du,
Ruth Mace: Cooperation is related to dispersal patterns in
Sino-Tibetan populations
And Ruth have written a more popular article about it in theconversation website: Sino-Tibetan populations shed light on human cooperation
12/2014
Congratulations to Emily Emmott for successfully completing her
PhD viva with only minor corrections. She is still with us in
Anthropology as a Teaching Fellow.
11/2014
On 26th November
at 7pm Ruth Mace will join a panel at the Royal Institution giving short
presentations and discussing ‘Humans and other animals: the tangled web of
culture’.
10/2014
Ruth is giving a Plenary lecture at the Inaugural meeting of the Polish
Evolution and Human Behaviour Society in Wroclaw on October 24th.
09/2014
Congratulations to Nicolas Montalva on successfully completing his PhD viva.
He is now returning to Chile to take up a lectureship in biological
anthropology.
04/2014
Congratulations to Nienke Alberts
and Kit Opie on the birth of their baby son Nils!
10/2013
Congratulations to Hannah Lewis on the birth of baby Maisie Alice Phoebe Dumbrell!
09/2013
We hosted a meeting for researchers to discuss work on a range of
approaches to understanding human co-operation.
04/2013
Ruth Mace was talking
to Mariella Frostrup on Radio 4 about birth order effects, specifically
related to her work with David Lawson and Emilly Emmott.
03/2013
Antonio Silva and David Lawson have recently been given best student talk and new investigator award respectively at the EHBEA conference in Amsterdam
03/2013
David Lawson has been awarded a 3 year MRC Population Health
Fellowship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
beginning in September 2013.
03/2013
Ruth Mace, Jia-Jia Wu and colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have published a paper on Proc. Royal Society B: Communal breeding promotes a matrilineal social system where husband and wife live apart
01/2013
Congratulations to Heidi Colleran for completing her PhD on "The evolutionary anthropology of fertility decline in rural Poland"
08/2012
Antonio Silva and Ruth Mace have published a paper in PLOS One: Lost Letter Measure of Variation in Altruistic Behaviour in 20 Neighbourhoods.
06/2012
Two of our PhD student won awards at the EHBEA and HBES conferences. Emily Emmott was awarded the best student poster at EHBEA and Heidi Colleran won the new investigator award at HBES.
Human co-operaation at UCL – A workshop on Sept 17th
Human co-operaation at UCL – A workshop on Sept 17th from HEEG on Vimeo.
A
meeting, convened by Ruth Mace, UCL Anthropology, to present and
discuss work on a range of approaches to understanding proximate
determinants and ultimate evolutionary causes human co-operation
(broadly defined). Talks include empirical, experimental and theoretical
work on topics ranging from parochial altruism, punishment,
prosociality and kinship and its role in promoting human co-operation.
Speakers include those working at UCL, visitors, and collaborators, from
anthropology, biology, computer science and other disciplines.
This meeting is supported by the UCL Grand Challenge of Human Wellbeing, the British Academy and the European Research Council.
Talks:
1. Welcome
2. Antonio Silva (UCL Anthropology)
Parochial altruism and inter-group conflict: A case study of Catholic and Protestant communities in Belfast
3. Nicola Raihani (UCL Biology)
Anonymous donations to charity – when to hide helping behaviour
4. Henry Travers (Imperial, Conservation Sciences)
How much help can experimental games give us in the design of incentives for conservation?
5. Hannah Lewis/Andrea Migliano (UCL , Anthropology)
The co-evolution of demand sharing, mobility and life history in hunter gatherer societies.
6. Daniel Taylor (Bath, Computer Science)
Does Exclusion Explain Cooperation in Large Groups?
7. Yi Tao (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Theoretical Ecology Group)
Significance of the One-Third Law in Evolution of Cooperation
Human co-operaation at UCL – A workshop on Sept 17th - Afternoon session from HEEG on Vimeo.
Talks
8. Jia Jia Wu (UCL Anthropology)
Why do males help sisters more than their wives in matrilineal social systems?
9. Ruth Mace (UCL Anthropology)
Reproductive competition and human kinship systems
10. Kit Opie (UCL Anthropology)
Reconstructing kinship systems in the neolithic
11. Mimi Guillon (UCL Anthropology)
The evolution of kinship terminology – a cultural phylogenetic approach
12. Dan Bang (Oxford, Experimental Psychology)
Confidence is for sharing
13. Joanna Bryson (Bath, Computer Science)
Punishment as regulation of public goods investment: Understanding cultural variation in anti-social punishment
Taught Courses
The Department of Anthropology at UCL offers a taught MSc in Human Evolution and Behaviour, which includes courses on human and primate behavioural ecology.
For more information, please visit the MSc in Human Behaviour and Evolution page.
Research Degrees
The Department of Anthropology also offers MPhil and PhD research degrees and we welcome enquiries from interested students. Please contact Ruth Mace or Andrea Migliano directly.