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University College London (UCL), (United Kingdom) |
Principal Investigator: Professor Ruth Mace
Department: Department of Anthropology
Key areas of expertise / interest: human evolutionary ecology of human life histories; evolution of bio-cultural diversity; cultural transmission of knowledge about contraception through social networks; cultural phylogenetics.
Summary: Ruth Mace is Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at University College London. Her research group HEEG (Human Evolutionary Ecology Group www.ucl.ac.uk/heeg/ )), is the largest concentrating on human evolutionary ecology and cultural evolution in the UK, and includes researchers from Europe, New Zealand and Africa. Members of the group are all working in one of my two main areas of research interest: the evolutionary ecology of human life histories, and the evolution of bio-cultural diversity. The former are concentrating on both natural fertility populations in Africa and on parental investment in the UK. The latter are mainly using cultural phylogenetic approaches in a range of cross-cultural studies on the co-evolution of social and subsistence systems. Ruth is currently interested in the cultural transmission of knowledge about contraception through social networks, and how cultural traits move on phylogeneties of cultures over historical time. Postdoc Fiona Jordan, and PhD students Tom Currie, Laura Fortunato also have areas of interest within ATACD, particularly in cultural phylogenetics.
Publications (recent):
Gibson M. & R. Mace (2006). An energy-saving development initiative increases birth rate and childhood malnutrition in rural Ethiopia. PLoS Medicine 3(4):e87.
Mace R., Allal N., Sear R & A. Prentice (2006). "The uptake of modern contraception in a Gambian community: the diffusion of an innovation over 25 years". In Social Information Transmission and Human Biology, eds J.C.K Wells, S.S. Strickland and K. Laland. CRC Press. (in press).
Mace R, Holden C. & S. Shennan. (Eds) (2005) The evolution of cultural diversity: a phylogenetic approach. UCL Press:London 291pp.
Fortunato, L., Holden C. & R. Mace (in press) On the origin of dowry: a phylogenetic approach. Human Nature.
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