Evolution & ecology
The evolution and ecology theme engages biological anthropologists and archaeologists in research that examines human and primate behavioural, cognitive, life history and morphological diversity through time and across space. Research in this theme addresses questions about how humans came to be, who we are from an evolutionary perspective and what that means for us today, how our environment and ecology shape our bodies, behaviours, minds, and health, and what we can learn about human evolution through studying great ape behavioural flexibility and communication. Our researchers and students employ cutting edge technologies including three-dimensional imaging and analysis, acoustic monitoring, and camera trapping. They infer behaviour from archaeological materials, examine and interpret cave art to reconstruct forms of communication, and explore human environments of the past. Our research spans from the terminal Pleistocene through the Holocene, across major transitions such as the onset of agriculture and animal domestication, and includes people living today. Much of our work is done in collaboration and partnership with descendent communities.
Given wide-ranging interest in these issues, this theme engages anthropology faculty and students with other departments and schools of the university, institutions around the world, and with the broader public.
Recent publications
2025 - Salomon, A.K., McKechnie, I. Insights Gained from Including People in our Models of Nature and Modes of Marine Science. Annual Review of Marine Science 17:167-191 https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-marine-021523-105524
2024 - Nowell, April and Skala, Aurora. The well-dressed hominin: clothing, tanning, and textile production in the Paleolithic. In Culturing the Body: Prehistoric Perspectives on Identity and Sociality, edited by Benjamin R. Collins and April Nowell. New York: Berghahn Books.
2023 - Lin, A.T., Hammond-Kaarremaa, L., Liu, H.-L., Stantis, C., McKechnie, I., Pavel, M., sa'hLa mitSa Pavel, S., Sen̓áḵw Wyss, S., Xweliqwiya Bolton, R.P., Morsette, D., qwasen Sparrow, D., Kwulasultun White, E., Carr, K., Aninta, S.G., Perri, A., Hartt, J., Bergström, A., Carmagnini, A., Charlton, S., Dalén, L., Feuerborn, T.R., France, C., Gopalakrishnan, S., Grimes, V., Harris, A., Kavich, G., Sacks, B.N., Sinding, M.-H.S., Skoglund, P., Stanton, D.W.G., Ostrander, E.A., Larson, G., Armstrong, C.G., Frantz, L.A.F., Hawkins, M.T.R., Kistler, L.,. The History of Coast Salish ‘Woolly Dogs’ Revealed by Ancient Genomics and Indigenous Knowledge. Science 382(6676):1303–1308. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi6549
2023 - Kalan, AK; Nakano, R and Warshawski, L. What we know and don’t know about great ape cultural communication. American Journal of Primatology. (Top 10 Most Downloaded Papers of 2023)
2023 - Nowell, April. Rethinking Neanderthals. Annual Review of Anthropology 52.
2022 - Hansen, M; Kalan, AK; Riley, E; Waters, S. Evaluating the need to habituate: modern approaches to field primatology during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Primate Conservation. 36.
2022 - Kubicka, Anna Maria, Wragg-Sykes, Rebecca, Nowell, April and Nelson, Emma. Neanderthal sexual behaviour. In The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology, Volume 4, edited by Todd K. Shackelford. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2022 - French, Jennifer and Nowell, April. Growing up Gravettian: bioarchaeological perspectives on adolescence in the European Mid-Upper Paleolithic. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 67.
2022 - Gustas, R.H., I. McKechnie, Q. Mackie, and C.T. Darimont. Estimating coastal shell midden site volumes using geometric solids: an example from Tseshaht Territory, Western Vancouver Island, British Columbia Canada. Advances in Archaeological Practice 10:200–214.
2022 - Hillis, D., R. Gustas, D. Pauly, W.W.L. Cheung, A.K. Salomon, and I. McKechnie. A paleothermometer of ancient Indigenous fisheries reveals increases in mean temperature of the catch over five millennia. Environmental Biology of Fishes.
2022 - Reeder-Myers, L.A., T.J. Braje, C.A. Hofman, E.A. Elliot Smith, C. Garland, M. A. Grone, C. Hadden, M. Hatch, T. Hunt, A. Kelley, M.J. LeFebvre, I. McKechnie, I. J. McNiven, B. Newsom, T. Pluckhahn, G.M. Sanchez, M. Schwadron, K.Y. Smith, T. Smith, A. Spiess, G. Tayac, T. Vollman, E.M. Weitzel, and T.C. Rick. Indigenous oyster fisheries persisted for millennia and should inform future management. Nature Communications 13:2383.
2022 - Duffield, S., J. Walkus, E. White, I. McKechnie, Q. Mackie, D. McLaren. Documenting 6,000 years of Indigenous fisheries and settlement as seen through vibracore sampling on the central coast of British Columbia, Canada. American Antiquity 87(1):168-183.
2022 - Slade, E., I. McKechnie, A.K. Salomon. Archaeological and contemporary evidence indicates low sea otter prevalence along the Pacific Northwest coast during the late Holocene. Ecosystems 25:548–566.
2021 - Anders, F; Kalan, AK; Kühl, H; Fuchs, M. Compensating class imbalance for acoustic chimpanzee detection with convolutional recurrent neural networks. Ecological Informatics. 65: 101423.
2021 - Nowell, April, Kurki, Helen and Mitchell, Lisa M. Conceiving reproduction in archaeology. In Routledge Handbook on Anthropology and Reproduction, edited by Sallie Han and Cecelia Tomori. London: Routledge, pp. 68-84.
2021 - Henson, L.H., N. Balkenhol, R. Gustas, M. Adams, J. Walkus, W.G. Housty, A. Vik Stronen, J. Moody, C. Service, D. Reece, B. VonHoldt, I. McKechnie, B.F. Koop, C.T. Darimont. Convergent geographic patterns between grizzly bear population genetic structure and Indigenous language groups in coastal British Columbia. Ecology and Society 26(3).
2021 Longman, D, Murray, A., Roberts, R., Oakley, S., Stock, J.T., Wells, J. Energetics as a driver of human morphological thermal adaptation; evidence from female ultra-endurance athletes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
2021 - Riede, Felix, Walsh, Matthew J., Nowell, April, Langley, Michelle and Johannsen, Niels N. Constructing the niches of and for innovation. Play objects and object play from a niche construction perspective. Evolutionary Human Sciences 2.
2020 - Kalan AK, Kulik L, Arandjelovic M, et al. Environmental variability supports chimpanzee behavioral diversity. Nature Communications.
2020 - Boesch C, Kalan AK, Mundry R, et al. Chimpanzee ethnography reveals unexpected cultural diversity. Nature Human Behaviour 4: 910-916.
2020 - Hillis, D., I. McKechnie, E. Guiry, D. St. Claire and C.T. Darimont. Ancient dog diets on the Pacific Northwest coast: zooarchaeological and stable isotope modelling evidence from Tseshaht territory and beyond. Scientific Reports 10:15630.
2020 - I. McKechnie, M.L. Moss, and S.J. Crockford. Domestic dogs and wild canids of the Northwest coast of North America: animal husbandry in a region without agriculture? Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 60:101209.
2020 - Nowell, April and French, Jennifer. Adolescence and innovation in the European Upper Palaeolithic. Evolutionary Human Sciences 2 (e36): 1-24.
2020 - Nowell, April. Reconsidering the personhood of infants in the Gravettian. Journal of Anthropological Research 76(2): 232-250.
2020 - Nowell, April and Kurki, Helen. Moving beyond the obstetrical dilemma hypothesis: birth, weaning and infant care in the Plio-Pleistocene. In The Mother-Infant Nexus in Anthropology: Small beginnings, significant outcomes, edited by Sian Halcrow and Rebecca Gowland. New York: Springer, pp. 173-190.
2020 - Murray, A.A. and Stock, J.T. Muscle force interacts with stature to influence functionally-related polar second moments of area in the lower limb among adult women. American Journal of Physical nthropology. Vol.173(2), p.258-275
2020 – Longman, D.P, Macintosh Murray, A.A., Roberts, R., Oakley, S, Wells, J.C.K., Stock, J.T. Ultra-endurance athletic performance suggests energetics drive human morphological thermal adaptation. Evolutionlary Human Sciences. Vol. 1, e16
2019 - Kalan AK, Carmignani E, Kronland-Martinet R, Ystad S, Aramaki M. Chimpanzees use trees with a resonant timbre for accumulative stone throwing. Biology Letters 15 (12), 20190747.
2019 - Kühl HS, Boesch C, Kulik L, .…(77 authors), Kalan AK. Human disturbance erodes chimpanzee behavioral diversity. Science 363: 1453-1455.
2019 - Kalan AK, Hohmann G, Arandjelovic M, et al. Novelty response of wild African apes to camera-traps. Current Biology 29: 1211-1217.
2019 - Macintosh, A.A. and Stock, J.T. Intra-limb variation in lower limb bone functional adaptation to loading among living women: implications for identifying locomotor variation in the past. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 168:566-581.
2018 - Fedje, D., D. McLaren, T.S. James, Q. Mackie, N.F. Smith, J.R. Southon and A.P. Mackie. A revised sea level history for the Northern Strait of Georgia, British Columbia, Canada. Quaternary Science Reviews 192:300–316.
2018 - Macintosh, A.A., Wells, J.C.K., Stock, J.T. Maternal investment, maturational rate of the offspring and mechanical competence of the adult female skeleton. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health: 167-189.
2018 - Payne, S., Kumar BC, Rajendra, Pomeroy, E., Macintosh, A.A., Stock, J.T. Thrifty phenotype vs cold adaptation: trade-offs in upper limb proportions of Himalayan populations of Nepal. Royal Society Open Science 5:172-174.
2018 - ayne, S., Macintosh, A.A., Stock, J.T. The influence of digit proportions on dexterity during cold exposure. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 166:875-883.
2018 - Payne, S., Macintosh, A.A., Stock, J.T. The thermoregulatory function of the human hand: how do palm and digit proportions affect heat loss? American Journal of Physical Anthropology 166:803-811.
2018 - Payne, S., Macintosh, A.A., Stock, J.T. Body size and body composition effects on heat loss from the hands during severe cold exposure. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 166:313-322.
2018 - Pomeroy, E., Macintosh, A.A., Wells, J.C.K., Cole, T.J., Stock, J.T. Relationship between body mass, lean mass, fat mass and limb bone cross-sectional geometry: implications for estimating body mass and physique from the skeleton. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 166:56-69.
2018 - Mackie, Quentin, Daryl Fedje and Duncan McLaren. Archaeology and sea level change on the British Columbia coast. Canadian Journal of Archaeology/Journal Canadien d’Archéologie 42:74–91.
2018 - Rodrigues, A.T., Iain McKechnie, & D.Y. Yang. Ancient DNA analysis of Indigenous rockfish use on the Pacific Coast: implications for marine conservation areas and fisheries management. PLoS ONE 13(2).
2018 - McLaren, D., D. Fedje, A. Dyck, Q. Mackie, A. Gauvreau and J. Cohen. Terminal Pleistocene Epoch human footprints from the Pacific coast of Canada. PLOS ONE13:e0193522.
2018 - Assefa, Z., A. Asrat, E. Hovers, Y. Lam, O. Pearson and D. Pleurdeau. Engraved ostrich eggshell from the Middle Stone Age contexts of Goda Buticha, Ethiopia. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 17:723-729.