ABOUT
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.
NEWS
08/2011
Shakti Lamba and Ruth Mace have published a paper in PNAS: Demography and ecology drive variation in cooperation across human populations.
07/2011
HEEG would like to congratulate Kesson Magid for having succcesfully completed his PhD viva.
07/2011
Andrea Migliano, Ruth Mace, Mark Thomas and Jerome Lewis have secured a £1.7M grant from the Leverhulme Trust to study Resilience in Hunter-Gatherers.
06/2011
HEEG go on an academic and spiritual retreat to Suffolk.