I am a bio-medical anthropologist. My research examines hormonal responses to social interactions, with focus on the special human relationships of coalitions, grandparenting, fathering, mothering, siblings, and pair-bonding. Supervisors: Richard Alexander (NAS), William D. Hamilton (NAS, FRS), Napoleon A. Chagnon (NAS)
Isolated indigenous societies who actively avoid sustained peaceful contact with the outside worl... more Isolated indigenous societies who actively avoid sustained peaceful contact with the outside world are critically endangered. Last year “Tanaru”, the lone surviving man of his tribe for at least 35 years, died in Southwest Amazonia marking the latest cultural extinction event in a long history of massacres, enslavement, and epidemics. Yet in the upper reaches of the Amazon Basin, dozens of resilient isolated tribes still manage to survive. Remote sensing is a reliable method of monitoring the population dynamics of uncontacted populations by quantifying the area cleared for gardens and villages, along with the fire detections associated with the burning of those clearings. Remote sensing also provides a method to document the number of residential structures and village fissioning. Only with these longitudinal assessments can we better evaluate the current no-contact policies by governments and the United Nations, along with the prospects for the long-term survival of isolated tribes. While the world’s largest isolated indigenous metapopulation, Pano speakers in Acre, Brazil, appears to be thriving, other smaller isolated populations disconnected from metapopulations, such as the single village of isolated Yanomami in northern Brazil, continue being extremely vulnerable to external threats. Our applied anthropological conservation approach is to provide analyses of publicly available remote sensing datasets to help inform policies that enhance survival and well-being of isolated cultural groups.
The human family seems to follow a typical mammalian pattern:intense maternal care including brea... more The human family seems to follow a typical mammalian pattern:intense maternal care including breastfeeding of an altricial (helpless) offspringwith some support from other relatives. Beyond the shared mammal/primate commonality, however, humans have some highly unusual traits. We are the only species characterized by the combination of: stable breeding bonds, extensive paternal care in multimale groups, extended bilateral kin recognition, life-long brother-sister bonds, grandparenting, and controlled exchange of mates among kin groups. Perhaps even more surprising than this unique set of universals is the extraordinary diversity in composition and behavior of human families. These characteristics are important pieces of the human evolutionary puzzle, and are critical for theoretical and pragmatic understanding of human family relationships and child development. In this chapter we first review a general model for the evolution of human mating, parenting, and kinship patterns based on a process of runaway social selection. We then evaluate the fossil evidenceand the potential physiological and neurobiological mechanismsthat underpin these central aspects of our sociality. Evidence suggests that humans have a suite of derived traits best explained by an evolutionary history of bilateral, multiple-generation kin networks, pairbonding, and complex coalitions including intercommunity alliances based in part on mating/marriage relationships. Keywords: human evolution; family relationships; hominin fossils; hormones; behavioral endocrinology
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
A major evolutionary transition in individuality involves the formation of a cooperative group an... more A major evolutionary transition in individuality involves the formation of a cooperative group and the transformation of that group into an evolutionary entity. Human cooperation shares principles with those of multicellular organisms that have undergone transitions in individuality: division of labour, communication, and fitness interdependence. After the split from the last common ancestor of hominoids, early hominins adapted to an increasingly terrestrial niche for several million years. We posit that new challenges in this niche set in motion a positive feedback loop in selection pressure for cooperation that ratcheted coevolutionary changes in sociality, communication, brains, cognition, kin relations and technology, eventually resulting in egalitarian societies with suppressed competition and rapid cumulative culture. The increasing pace of information innovation and transmission became a key aspect of the evolutionary niche that enabled humans to become formidable cooperators...
The Caribbean is a genetically diverse region with heterogeneous admixture compositions influence... more The Caribbean is a genetically diverse region with heterogeneous admixture compositions influenced by local island ecologies, migrations, colonial conflicts, and demographic histories. The Commonwealth of Dominica is a mountainous island in the Lesser Antilles historically known to harbor communities with unique patterns of migration, mixture, and isolation. This community-based population genetic study adds biological evidence to inform post-colonial narrative histories in a Dominican horticultural village. High density single nucleotide polymorphism data paired with a previously compiled genealogy provide the first genome-wide insights on genetic ancestry and population structure in Dominica. We assessed family-based clustering, inferred global ancestry, and dated recent admixture by implementing the fastSTRUCTURE clustering algorithm, modeling graph-based migration with TreeMix, assessing patterns of linkage disequilibrium decay with ALDER, and visualizing data from Dominica with...
In Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society, Cordelia Fine targets one of the most pe... more In Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society, Cordelia Fine targets one of the most persistent, ubiquitous stories about difference between the sexes: “Testosterone Rex.” Fine defines “T...
Abstract Family relationships are a key component of human evolution. The extent and duration of ... more Abstract Family relationships are a key component of human evolution. The extent and duration of offspring care is extraordinary, and unique in the huge informational transfer via language. Kin relationships are bilateral, variable, multigenerational, and intergroup. Mating relationships are also variable, usually influenced by kin, and generate important affinal linkages in traditional cultures. These aspects of human sociality are biologically embedded in neurological and physiological mechanisms. Analysis of genetic, hormonal and neural mechanisms can provide clues into the evolution of the emotional and cognitive systems that underpin the human family.
This chapter summarizes how and why humans evolved the seemingly oppositional traits of coalition... more This chapter summarizes how and why humans evolved the seemingly oppositional traits of coalitional aggression and extensive parental care. Coalitions are one of the most striking aspects of human behavior. All societies recognize alliances among communities, usually based on kinship. Intergroup competition is ubiquitous, often deadly and fueled by revenge, and critical to general human welfare. Children in all cultures develop friendship cliques and engage in group-against-group team play. Parenting is also a fundamental component of human sociality. The extent and duration of offspring care is extraordinary—and unique in the huge informational transfer via language and culture. The emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components of human family relationships are biologically embedded in neurological and physiological mechanisms. Analysis of affiliative and stress hormonal axes can provide clues into the emotional and cognitive systems that underpin these core aspects of human sociality.
Isolated indigenous societies who actively avoid sustained peaceful contact with the outside worl... more Isolated indigenous societies who actively avoid sustained peaceful contact with the outside world are critically endangered. Last year “Tanaru”, the lone surviving man of his tribe for at least 35 years, died in Southwest Amazonia marking the latest cultural extinction event in a long history of massacres, enslavement, and epidemics. Yet in the upper reaches of the Amazon Basin, dozens of resilient isolated tribes still manage to survive. Remote sensing is a reliable method of monitoring the population dynamics of uncontacted populations by quantifying the area cleared for gardens and villages, along with the fire detections associated with the burning of those clearings. Remote sensing also provides a method to document the number of residential structures and village fissioning. Only with these longitudinal assessments can we better evaluate the current no-contact policies by governments and the United Nations, along with the prospects for the long-term survival of isolated tribes. While the world’s largest isolated indigenous metapopulation, Pano speakers in Acre, Brazil, appears to be thriving, other smaller isolated populations disconnected from metapopulations, such as the single village of isolated Yanomami in northern Brazil, continue being extremely vulnerable to external threats. Our applied anthropological conservation approach is to provide analyses of publicly available remote sensing datasets to help inform policies that enhance survival and well-being of isolated cultural groups.
The human family seems to follow a typical mammalian pattern:intense maternal care including brea... more The human family seems to follow a typical mammalian pattern:intense maternal care including breastfeeding of an altricial (helpless) offspringwith some support from other relatives. Beyond the shared mammal/primate commonality, however, humans have some highly unusual traits. We are the only species characterized by the combination of: stable breeding bonds, extensive paternal care in multimale groups, extended bilateral kin recognition, life-long brother-sister bonds, grandparenting, and controlled exchange of mates among kin groups. Perhaps even more surprising than this unique set of universals is the extraordinary diversity in composition and behavior of human families. These characteristics are important pieces of the human evolutionary puzzle, and are critical for theoretical and pragmatic understanding of human family relationships and child development. In this chapter we first review a general model for the evolution of human mating, parenting, and kinship patterns based on a process of runaway social selection. We then evaluate the fossil evidenceand the potential physiological and neurobiological mechanismsthat underpin these central aspects of our sociality. Evidence suggests that humans have a suite of derived traits best explained by an evolutionary history of bilateral, multiple-generation kin networks, pairbonding, and complex coalitions including intercommunity alliances based in part on mating/marriage relationships. Keywords: human evolution; family relationships; hominin fossils; hormones; behavioral endocrinology
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
A major evolutionary transition in individuality involves the formation of a cooperative group an... more A major evolutionary transition in individuality involves the formation of a cooperative group and the transformation of that group into an evolutionary entity. Human cooperation shares principles with those of multicellular organisms that have undergone transitions in individuality: division of labour, communication, and fitness interdependence. After the split from the last common ancestor of hominoids, early hominins adapted to an increasingly terrestrial niche for several million years. We posit that new challenges in this niche set in motion a positive feedback loop in selection pressure for cooperation that ratcheted coevolutionary changes in sociality, communication, brains, cognition, kin relations and technology, eventually resulting in egalitarian societies with suppressed competition and rapid cumulative culture. The increasing pace of information innovation and transmission became a key aspect of the evolutionary niche that enabled humans to become formidable cooperators...
The Caribbean is a genetically diverse region with heterogeneous admixture compositions influence... more The Caribbean is a genetically diverse region with heterogeneous admixture compositions influenced by local island ecologies, migrations, colonial conflicts, and demographic histories. The Commonwealth of Dominica is a mountainous island in the Lesser Antilles historically known to harbor communities with unique patterns of migration, mixture, and isolation. This community-based population genetic study adds biological evidence to inform post-colonial narrative histories in a Dominican horticultural village. High density single nucleotide polymorphism data paired with a previously compiled genealogy provide the first genome-wide insights on genetic ancestry and population structure in Dominica. We assessed family-based clustering, inferred global ancestry, and dated recent admixture by implementing the fastSTRUCTURE clustering algorithm, modeling graph-based migration with TreeMix, assessing patterns of linkage disequilibrium decay with ALDER, and visualizing data from Dominica with...
In Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society, Cordelia Fine targets one of the most pe... more In Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society, Cordelia Fine targets one of the most persistent, ubiquitous stories about difference between the sexes: “Testosterone Rex.” Fine defines “T...
Abstract Family relationships are a key component of human evolution. The extent and duration of ... more Abstract Family relationships are a key component of human evolution. The extent and duration of offspring care is extraordinary, and unique in the huge informational transfer via language. Kin relationships are bilateral, variable, multigenerational, and intergroup. Mating relationships are also variable, usually influenced by kin, and generate important affinal linkages in traditional cultures. These aspects of human sociality are biologically embedded in neurological and physiological mechanisms. Analysis of genetic, hormonal and neural mechanisms can provide clues into the evolution of the emotional and cognitive systems that underpin the human family.
This chapter summarizes how and why humans evolved the seemingly oppositional traits of coalition... more This chapter summarizes how and why humans evolved the seemingly oppositional traits of coalitional aggression and extensive parental care. Coalitions are one of the most striking aspects of human behavior. All societies recognize alliances among communities, usually based on kinship. Intergroup competition is ubiquitous, often deadly and fueled by revenge, and critical to general human welfare. Children in all cultures develop friendship cliques and engage in group-against-group team play. Parenting is also a fundamental component of human sociality. The extent and duration of offspring care is extraordinary—and unique in the huge informational transfer via language and culture. The emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components of human family relationships are biologically embedded in neurological and physiological mechanisms. Analysis of affiliative and stress hormonal axes can provide clues into the emotional and cognitive systems that underpin these core aspects of human sociality.
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