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Adrian Viliami Bell

@avbell.bsky.social
987 followers 319 following 12 posts

professor and chair of anthropology at the university of utah; interested in evolution, culture, and migration adrianbell.wordpress.com

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Reposted by Adrian Viliami Bell
WZB Berlin @wzb.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
How can cultural evolution help us understand migration and diversity? At the 12th Annual WZB Conference, researchers explore how cultural traits emerge, spread and adapt to changing social and environmental contexts. Sept 24–26, Berlin. wzb.eu/de/veranstal...
wzb.eu
The Cultural Evolution of Migration and Diversity
12th Annual WZB Conference on Migration and Diversity
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Siobhán Cully 🇺🇸 🐱🥼🤓🩼 @siobhancully.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
NSF GRFP solicitation is live and anthropological disciplines are included in the appendix. I will be encouraging students to apply. www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
nsf.gov
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)
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Adrian Viliami Bell @avbell.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
This model had to happen, props to @nathan-gabriel.bsky.social and @psmaldino.bsky.social
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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
I really like this paper I did with @nathan-gabriel.bsky.social and @avbell.bsky.social, now out in EHS. It's an unusual paper because we tried to model the emergence of complex, multidimensional and intersectional identity structures from a signaling perspective. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
The evolution of identity signals for co-ordination in diverse societies
Individual social identities indicate group affiliations and are typically associated with group-typical preferences, signals that indicate group membership, and the propensity to condition actions on the social signals of others, resulting in group-differentiated interaction norms. Past work modelling identity signalling and co-ordination has typically assumed that individuals belong to one of a discrete set of groups. Yet individuals can simultaneously belong to multiple groups, which may be nested within larger groupings. Here, we introduce the generalized Bach or Stravinsky game, a co-ordination game with ordered preferences, which allows us to construct a model that captures the overlapping and hierarchical nature of social identity. Our model unifies several prior results into a single framework, including results related to co-ordination, minority disadvantage, and cross-cultural competence. Our model also allows agents to express complex social identities through multidimensional signalling, which we use to explore a variety of complex group structures. Our consideration of intersectional identities exposes flaws in naive measures of group structure, illustrating how empirical studies may overlook some social identities if they do not consider the behaviours that those identities function to afford.Figure 1.
(a) Ancient Sumerian cities used throughout the paper as a motivating example. (b) Diagram of relationships between the different Mesopotamian identities along with shapes used to represent each of them throughout the paper.Figure 11.
Proportion of simulations that resulted in (a) the intersectional structure, optimal when 𝛼 =2, or (b) either of the two mere conjunction structures, optimal when 𝛼 =0. The trio of stick figures at the top represent the optimal strategy profiles used by non-Kishus in all cases.Acknowledgements
We thank the members of the MODSOC lab at UC Merced for helpful comments. We are grateful to the NSF for funding foundational research on social identity, inequality, and intersectionality.
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anthrofuentes.bsky.social @anthrofuentes.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Nope, just nope. Resist. Fool’s gold | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Fool’s gold
Already rocked by decades of political interference, corporate influence, mismanagement, and partisan efforts to undermine its authority, the expert bureaucracy, the “lifeblood” of the US administrati...
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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
New Open Access book edited by Cristina Moya @hyperadapthyrax.bsky.social and Wolfgang Wagner on identity and culture. Many great chapter by great folks. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
link.springer.com
Culture, Identity, and Essentialism
This open access book approaches topics of culture, identity, and essentialism through an anthropological and psychological lens.
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
The Cultural Evolution Society is delighted to announce that Mason Youngblood (he/they) @masonyoungblood.bsky.social, Institute for Advanced Computational Science, Stony Brook University, is the recipient of the 2026 CES New Investigator Award. Congratulations Mason on this well-deserved award!!
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
The Cultural Evolution Society is delighted to announce that Feryl Badiani (She/Her), LEVYNA, Masaryk University, is the recipient of the 2026 CES Richerson Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research. Please join us in congratulating Feryl on this well-deserved recognition!
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Adrian Viliami Bell @avbell.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
We are hiring! utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/197...
utah.peopleadmin.com
Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Archaeology and Director of UUAC
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Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
30 years ago today, December 31st 1995, the last ever Calvin & Hobbes comic strip was published. Even now, I still find it so poignant & moving.
Image shows the panels of the final Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, published on December 31st 1995, drawn by comic artist Bill Watterson. It depicts Calvin (a young boy) and Hobbes (a stuffed tiger and his close companion) trekking outside in their winter clothes, across a fresh blanket of snow. 
Calvin: Wow, it really snowed last night! Isn't it wonderful!
Hobbes: Everything familiar has disappeared! The world looks brand-new!
Calvin: A new year. ... A fresh clean start!
Hobbes: It's like having a big white sheet of paper to draw on!
Calvin: A day full of possibilities!
The two of them board their sled in anticipation.
Calvin: It's a magical world, Hobbes ol' buddy...
They set off on the sled out into the snow.
Calvin: ... Let's go exploring!
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EHBEA @ehbea.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
@royalsocietypublishing.org has published an OPEN ACCESS theme issue of Philosophical Transactions B: “Transforming cultural evolution research and its application to global futures” compiled and edited by Adam H Boyette, Sarah Mathew, Stephen Asatsa, Michael Chimento, and Rachel L Kendal 💫 👇 👇 👇
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Royal Society Publishing @royalsocietypublishing.org · 11/12/2025
This new issue of #PhilTransB expands the field of cultural #evolution and shows why it matters for today’s biggest challenges. It highlights research funded by the @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social's Transformation Fund, which focused on #DEI: royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
The deadline has been extended - there is still time to get your abstracts in to join us in Morocco!
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
Our recently announced ACE Course Design Awards showcased excellent teaching materials from CE courses. We're now pleased to announce the ACE Teaching Innovation Awards, aimed at those looking to include more CE in their courses. Find out more @ the link below! vuw.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
vuw.qualtrics.com
Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management
The most powerful, simple and trusted way to gather experience data. Start your journey to experience management and try a free account today.
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Anne Pisor @annepisor.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
📢 Come join us! Penn State Anthropology is hiring *two tenure-track assistant professors*, one in human reproductive ecology and one in archaeology. Here are just a few reasons why working at Penn State is awesome:
A photo of the Susan Welch Liberal Arts building at sunrise
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Adrian Viliami Bell @avbell.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
I'm co-directing an independent film w/ Ella Warnick about marine foraging, environmental adaptation, & family in Tonga, trailer: youtu.be/3ttrOkX-esU?... Still not finished! I have a job already, but to finish this film please support my young, up-and-coming co-director: gofund.me/d9b24a5af
youtu.be
Fatongia | Official Trailer
YouTube video by Ella Warnick
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
We are delighted to announce that the CES2026 conference website is now live! We invite you to submit your presentation proposals using the link on the webpage, deadline November 16th: airess.fgses-um6p.ma/ces2026
airess.fgses-um6p.ma
Cultural Evolution Society 2026 Conference | Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique - FGSES
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
The count down starts for #CESRabat! Follow @ces2026.bsky.social and join us May 11-13 next year for an exciting meeting in Rabat, Morocco. Massive thanks to the #CESRabat organising committee: Sarah Alami (co-chair) Mathieu Charbonneau (co-chair) Zachary Garfield Edmond Seabright
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
We are pleased to announce our newly elected committee members of the Cultural Evolution Society: Minhua Yan @minhuayan.bsky.social Helena Miton @helenamiton.bsky.social Wataru Toyokawa @watarutoyokawa.bsky.social & Mason Youngblood @masonyoungblood.bsky.social Welcome and congratulations!!
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Tim Waring @twaring.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
@jeremykoster.bsky.social @avbell.bsky.social @drelenamiu.bsky.social @duhe.bsky.social @eapower.bsky.social @kevinlala.bsky.social @charlesefferson.bsky.social
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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
New preprint w/ Nathan Gabriel & @avbell.bsky.social: The Evolution of Identity Signals for Coordination in Diverse Societies The model tackles multiple nested/overlapping identities and complex signaling structure. Recovers lots of old results and adds several new ones osf.io/preprints/so...
Individual social identities indicate group affiliations and are typically associated with 3 group-typical preferences, signals that indicate group membership, and the propensity to condition actions on the social signals of others, resulting in group-differentiated interaction norms. Past work modeling identity signaling and coordination has typically assumed that individuals belong to one of a discrete set of groups. Yet individuals can simultaneously belong to multiple groups, which may be nested within larger groupings. Here, we introduce the generalized Bach or Stravinsky game, a coordination game with ordered preferences, which allows us to construct a model that captures the overlapping and hierarchical nature of social identity. Our model unifies several prior results into a single framework, including results related to coordination, minority disadvantage, and cross-cultural competence. Our model also allows agents to express complex social identities through multidimensional signaling, which we use to explore a variety of complex group structures. Our consideration of intersectional identities exposes flaws in naive measures of group structure, illustrating how empirical studies may overlook some social identities if they do not consider the behaviors that those identities function to afford.
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
🚨 CE PhD opportunity! @onicatam.bsky.social is looking for PhD applicants interested in projects related to cultural evolution or language evolution for a fully funded scholarships at the School of Social Sciences at Heriot-Watt University www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNH532/s...
jobs.ac.uk
School of Social Sciences PhD Studentship (Psychology) at Heriot-Watt University
Find a School of Social Sciences PhD Studentship (Psychology) on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board in higher education. Click to view more!
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Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 05/06/2025
Nomination form, and more details, here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Cultural Evolution Society Elections 2025: Nomination Form
Please use this form to submit your nomination(s) for the Executive Committee's open positions. On this page we will ask you for general details. The next pages allow you to choose the position(s) ...
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Applications for the Cultural Evolution ACE Course Design Awards close July 7. Consider applying to gain funding to up the impact of your courses!
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
It's CES election time! We have FOUR positions that have come up for renewal, so please consider nominating yourself or your colleagues. Nominations close June 20th, with voting from June 30th -July 4th.
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Elspeth Ready @elspethready.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Job announcement 🚨: paid fieldwork opportunity with Sanguatsiniq research project! Details in thread ⬇️ Please share!
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
📢 CES launches Advancing Cultural Evolution (ACE) Course Design Awards! 🎉 $4000 award + global impact for your cultural evolution course materials. Course must be college/grad level with 10+ hrs content. Application link: vuw.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... #CulturalEvolution #Education #Grants
vuw.qualtrics.com
Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management
The most powerful, simple and trusted way to gather experience data. Start your journey to experience management and try a free account today.
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Centre for Culture and Evolution @brunelcce.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
1/ 🌟📢 Applications for our MSc in Psychology, Culture & Evolution at @brunelpsy.bsky.social @brunelgradschool.bsky.social are OPEN for 2025/26 🎓 📢 Ever wondered how culture 🌍 and evolution 🧬 shape human behaviour? 🤔 This interdisciplinary program might be for you 🧵
brunel.ac.uk
Psychology, Culture and Evolution MSc | Brunel University of London
A research-intensive psychology master's course, allowing you to understand how culture and evolution can influence human behaviour.
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Tim Waring @twaring.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Fully-funded PhD position on the cultural evolution of environmental management! Link evolution, ecology and behavioral science in the ACE Lab timwaring.info Details: forms.gle/gZWK9BpwYfoG... @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social @alexmesoudi.com @hyperadapthyrax.bsky.social @michael.muthukrishna.com
timwaring.info
ACE Lab: Applied Cultural Evolution Laboratory
culture, evolution, cooperation, and sustainability
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Kevin Lala @kevinlala.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Thankyou CES exec for taking this courageous stance.
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Simon J. Greenhill @simongreenhill.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Interested in Cultural Evolution? You should check out @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social's new 'Transmissions' by @ferylbadiani.bsky.social. First episode has the inimitable @hyperadapthyrax.bsky.social talking about why CE matters, and helps us understand human behavior & culture
youtube.com
Transmissions Episode 1 with Dr Cristina Moya
YouTube video by Cultural Evolution Society
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
CES offers its full support to the Stand Up For Science rallies in the U.S. on March 7 2025.
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
We are please to release Transmissions Ep 1, featuring Dr Cristina Moya @hyperadapthyrax.bsky.social in conversation with Feryl Badiani @ferylbadiani.bsky.social Cristina and Feryl chat about Cristina's work in Peru and discuss CE in human and non-human societies: youtu.be/2otT0PkhPkw?...
youtu.be
Transmissions Episode 1 with Dr Cristina Moya
YouTube video by Cultural Evolution Society
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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
🎙 Exciting news! Transmissions Episode 1 features Dr. Cristina Moya. In this episode, we explore her fieldwork in Peru, and discuss how pilgrimage sites emerge and sustain themselves over time. It will be out on YouTube this week—Stay tuned for the link!
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Jeremy Koster @jeremykoster.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Upon learning that yesterday would be my last day as a program officer at the National Science Foundation, I shared this parting message with my colleagues. The next few months will be frenetic and stressful for them. Here are some things that you can do to help them with the mission ahead. (1)
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Co-sign 👇 excellent talk covering the anti-racist origins of the field of cultural evolution and giving practical advice on how the field can counter scientific racism
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Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 12/02/2025
For those who missed the @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social conference in Durham last September, the recorded talks are now freely available to watch here: underline.io/events/456/l...
underline.io
Watch lectures from the best researchers.
On-demand video platform giving you access to lectures from conferences worldwide.
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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
For our junior colleagues in the US looking for opportunities, Europe is a great place to do science 🧪 We have a #postdoc call open right now! #complexity csh.ac.at/education/po...
csh.ac.at
PostDoc Program * Complexity Science Hub
Education
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Björn Lindström @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
💥Postdoc Opening! 💥We (@lucasmolleman.bsky.social & Piet van den Berg) seek a postdoc to study social learning and cultural evolution. We are looking for someone with math/computational modeling skills & interest in human behavior. Get in touch if you have any questions! shorturl.at/W6Qsb
ki.varbi.com
Postdoktor i beräkningspsykologi/kognitionsvetenskap med fokus på social inlärning och kulturell evolution
Vill du bidra till medicinsk forskning av toppkvalitet? Gruppen Mechanisms of Social Behavior vid Karolinska Institutet i Stockholm söker en högt kvalificerad postdoktoral forskare för att ingå i
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Christoph Völter @christophvoelter.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
New #PhDposition (cultural psychology) at the Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology at MPI-EVA: the project focuses on social cognition and will involve research in Germany (Leipzig), Namibia and Polynesia. Application deadline: March 1st, 2025 www.eva.mpg.de/comparative-...
eva.mpg.de
Career - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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Dominik Deffner @dominikdeffner.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
🏰 PhD position on computational modelling | collective dynamics | cultural evolution 🏰 Get in touch with any questions you might have and join me in beautiful Marburg! stellenangebote.uni-marburg.de/jobposting/c... (Deutsch) stellenangebote.uni-marburg.de/jobposting/3... (English)
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Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
The Development of Risk Attitudes and their Cultural Transmission New preprint w/ Alejandro Pérez Velilla & @babeheim.bsky.social. This is one of the best modeling papers I have ever been involved in, tackling developmental, cultural, and class differences in risk attitudes. osf.io/preprints/so...
The Development of Risk Attitudes and their Cultural
Transmission. We use cultural evolutionary models to examine how individual experiences and culturally-inherited information jointly shape risk attitudes under environmental uncertainty. We find
that learning processes not only generate plausible variation in risk attitudes, but also that conservative learning strategies—emphasizing the preservation of generational knowledge—excel in high-risk environments, promoting stable wealth accumulation and long-term survival but limiting asset growth as conditions improve. In contrast, exploratory learning strategies—leveraging risk-free juvenile exploration and peer influence—foster risk-tolerant attitudes that thrive in affluent, low-risk settings where wealth buffers and social safety nets reduce the costs of miscalculations. Introducing economic stratification to the model reveals how wealth disparities and
inter-class interactions reinforce these patterns, exacerbating differences in learning strategies and risk-taking behaviors, and perpetuating socioeconomic inequalities through the cultural inertia of excessive risk aversion. By uniting developmental, social, and evolutionary perspectives,
our framework provides a novel lens on the cultural evolution of risk attitudes and their broader
societal implications.
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Adrian Viliami Bell @avbell.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
Newsie news for phonetic ethnic marker paper with @drlisamojo.bsky.social and Marianna Di Paolo attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff...
attheu.utah.edu
Pacific Islander teens assert identity through language - @theU
Pacific Islanders attending more diverse schools pronounced vowels subtly differently than students in a predominantly white school, confirming the theory that groups differentiate along ethnic lines.
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Sheina Lew-Levy @sheinalew.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
We're hiring! Are you a cultural evolutionary modeller who wants to understand how and why children's peer cultures evolve? Here's a postdoc position for you! @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social @durhampsych.bsky.social @ehbea.bsky.social @eslr.bsky.social Apply here: durham.taleo.net/careersectio...
durham.taleo.net
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Click the link provided to see the complete job description.
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Adrian Viliami Bell @avbell.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Repost of work influenced by the insights of Labov among others Often amazed at how (my) supposed *independent* thinking is a continuation of what we have inherited
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Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 15/11/2024
Announcement! The next @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social CES conference will be at UM6P in Rabat, Morocco, provisional dates 11-13th May 2026! Hosted by Mathieu Charbonneau, @sarahalami.bsky.social, @zhgarfield.com & @edseabright.bsky.social. Save the dates! culturalevolutionsociety.org/news-and-eve...
culturalevolutionsociety.org
Cultural Evolution Society 2026 Conference Announced - Cultural Evolution Society
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Hanna Kokko @kokkonut.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
🚨JOB 🚨Would a title "Professor of Life History Evolution" suit you? If yes... Become a colleague of us here in Mainz! I am happy to provide more information if this intrigues you. cms.zdv.uni-mainz.de/karriere/wp-...
cms.zdv.uni-mainz.de
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Maxime Derex @maximederex.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Population connectivity shapes the distribution and complexity of chimpanzee cumulative culture | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Population connectivity shapes the distribution and complexity of chimpanzee cumulative culture
Although cumulative culture is a hallmark of hominin evolution, its origins can be traced back to our common ancestor with chimpanzees. Here, we investigated the evolutionary origins of chimpanzee cum...
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Excellent new paper which clearly explains how “a gene-culture coevolution perspective can refute reductionist & determinist claims while providing an inclusive multidisciplinary framework to interpret human variation” Genes, culture & scientific racism www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Genes, culture, and scientific racism | PNAS
Quantitative studies of cultural evolution and gene-culture coevolution (henceforth “CE” and “GCC”) emerged in the 1970s, in the aftermath of the “...
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Heidi Colleran @heidicolleran.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Modeller? Interested in linguistic diversity? *Postdoc* position on DYNAMICS OF MULTILINGUALISM available in my group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit... 2 yrs working with an international & interdisciplinary team led by @justynaolko.bsky.social
eva.mpg.de
Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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