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All Outputs (17)

Hominin cognition: The null hypothesis. (2025)
Journal Article
Stibbard-Hawkes, D. N. E. (2025). Hominin cognition: The null hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 48, Article e23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X24001055

The target article explores material culture datasets from three African forager groups. After demonstrating that these modern, contemporary human populations would leave scant evidence of symbolic behaviour or material complexity, it cautioned again... Read More about Hominin cognition: The null hypothesis..

Female foragers sometimes hunt, yet gendered divisions of labor are real: a comment on Anderson et al. (2023) The Myth of Man the Hunter (2024)
Journal Article
Venkataraman, V. V., Hoffman, J., Farquharson, K., Davis, H. E., Hagen, E. H., Hames, R. B., Hewlett, B. S., Glowacki, L., Jang, H., Kelly, R., Kramer, K., Lew-Levy, S., Starkweather, K., Syme, K., & Stibbard-Hawkes, D. N. (2024). Female foragers sometimes hunt, yet gendered divisions of labor are real: a comment on Anderson et al. (2023) The Myth of Man the Hunter. Evolution and Human Behavior, 45(4), 106586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2024.04.014

Gendered divisions of labor are a feature of every known contemporary hunter-gatherer (forager) society. While gender roles are certainly flexible, and prominent and well-studied cases of female hunting do exist, it is more often men who hunt. A new... Read More about Female foragers sometimes hunt, yet gendered divisions of labor are real: a comment on Anderson et al. (2023) The Myth of Man the Hunter.

Foreign-language effects in cross-cultural behavioral research: Evidence from the Tanzanian Hadza (2024)
Journal Article
Stibbard-Hawkes, D. N. E., Abarbanell, L., Mabulla, I. A., Endeko, E. S., Legare, C. H., & Apicella, C. L. (2024). Foreign-language effects in cross-cultural behavioral research: Evidence from the Tanzanian Hadza. PNAS Nexus, 3(6), Article pgae218. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae218

Behavioral research in traditional subsistence populations is often conducted in a non-native language. Recent studies show that non-native language-use systematically influences behavior, including in widely used methodologies. However, such studies... Read More about Foreign-language effects in cross-cultural behavioral research: Evidence from the Tanzanian Hadza.

Reconsidering the link between past material culture and cognition in light of contemporary hunter-gatherer material use. (2024)
Journal Article
Stibbard-Hawkes, D. N. E. (online). Reconsidering the link between past material culture and cognition in light of contemporary hunter-gatherer material use. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1-53. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x24000062

Many have interpreted symbolic material culture in the deep past as evidencing the origins sophisticated, modern cognition. Scholars from across the behavioural and cognitive sciences, including linguists, psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists... Read More about Reconsidering the link between past material culture and cognition in light of contemporary hunter-gatherer material use..

A cost for signaling: do Hadza hunter-gatherers forgo calories to show-off in an experimental context? (2023)
Journal Article
Stibbard-Hawkes, D. N., Amir, D., & Apicella, C. L. (2023). A cost for signaling: do Hadza hunter-gatherers forgo calories to show-off in an experimental context?. Evolution and Human Behavior, 44(5), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2022.10.004

Hadza food-sharing is extremely generous and often extends to individuals outside the household. Some anthropologists have proposed that individuals, especially men, share food beyond the household in order to signal foraging skill. While correlation... Read More about A cost for signaling: do Hadza hunter-gatherers forgo calories to show-off in an experimental context?.

Myopia rates among Hadza hunter‐gatherers are low but not exceptional (2022)
Journal Article
Stibbard‐Hawkes, D. N., & Apicella, C. L. (2022). Myopia rates among Hadza hunter‐gatherers are low but not exceptional. American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 179(4), 655-667. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24611

Myopia rates are increasing globally. This epidemic is linked to increased school participation, decreased outdoor activity and the proliferation of near-work occupations. The Tanzanian Hadza have traditionally subsisted as hunter-gatherers. School p... Read More about Myopia rates among Hadza hunter‐gatherers are low but not exceptional.

Why hunt? Why gather? Why share? Hadza assessments of foraging and food-sharing motive (2022)
Journal Article
Stibbard-Hawkes, D. N., Smith, K., & Apicella, C. L. (2022). Why hunt? Why gather? Why share? Hadza assessments of foraging and food-sharing motive. Evolution and Human Behavior, 43(3), 257-272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2022.03.001

Over the last half century, anthropologists have vigorously debated the adaptive motivations underlying food acquisition choices and food-sharing among hunter-gatherer groups. Numerous explanations have been proposed to account for high-levels of gen... Read More about Why hunt? Why gather? Why share? Hadza assessments of foraging and food-sharing motive.

Do religious and market-based institutions promote cooperation in Hadza hunter-gatherers? (2022)
Journal Article
Stagnaro, M. N., Stibbard-Hawkes, D. N., & Apicella, C. L. (2022). Do religious and market-based institutions promote cooperation in Hadza hunter-gatherers?. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 12(1-2), 171-189. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2021.2006293

Humans’ willingness to bear costs to benefit others is an evolutionary puzzle. Cultural group selection proposes a possible answer to this puzzle—cooperative norms and institutions proliferate due to group-level benefits. For instance, belief in know... Read More about Do religious and market-based institutions promote cooperation in Hadza hunter-gatherers?.

A Noisy Signal: To what extent are Hadza hunting reputations predictive of actual hunting skills? (2018)
Journal Article
Stibbard-Hawkes, D. N. E., Attenborough, R. D., & Marlowe, F. W. (2018). A Noisy Signal: To what extent are Hadza hunting reputations predictive of actual hunting skills?. Evolution and Human Behavior, 39(6), 639-651. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.06.005

The measurement of hunting ability has been central to several debates about the goals of men’s hunting among the Hadza and other hunter-gatherer populations. Hunting ability has previously been measured indirectly, by weighing the amount of food ind... Read More about A Noisy Signal: To what extent are Hadza hunting reputations predictive of actual hunting skills?.