We will review some of the major results in random graphs and some of the more challenging open problems. We will cover algorithmic and structural questions. We will touch on newer models, including those related to the WWW.

Random graphs

Beginning with Emlen (1966) and MacArthur and Pianka (1966) and extending through the last ten years, several authors have sought to predict the foraging behavior of animals by means of mathematical models. These models are very similar,in that they all assume that the fitness of a foraging animal is a function of the efficiency of foraging measured in terms of some "currency" (Schoener, 1971) -usually energy- and that natural selection has resulted in animals that forage so as to maximize this fitness. As a result of these similarities, the models have become known as "optimal foraging models"; and the theory that embodies them, "optimal foraging theory." The situations to which optimal foraging theory has been applied, with the exception of a few recent studies, can be divided into the following four categories: (1) choice by an animal of which food types to eat (i.e., optimal diet); (2) choice of which patch type to feed in (i.e., optimal patch choice); (3) optimal allocation of time to different patches; and (4) optimal patterns and speed of movements. In this review we discuss each of these categories separately, dealing with both the theoretical developments and the data that permit tests of the predictions. The review is selective in the sense that we emphasize studies that either develop testable predictions or that attempt to test predictions in a precise quantitative manner. We also discuss what we see to be some of the future developments in the area of optimal foraging theory and how this theory can be related to other areas of biology. Our general conclusion is that the simple models so far formulated are supported are supported reasonably well by available data and that we are optimistic about the value both now and in the future of optimal foraging theory. We argue, however, that these simple models will requre much modification, espicially to deal with situations that either cannot easily be put into one or another of the above four categories or entail currencies more complicated that just energy.

Citation classic - optimal foraging - a selective review of theory and tests

The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior.

Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution

This article evaluates theories of the origins of sex differences in human behavior. It reviews the cross-cultural evidence on the behavior of women and men in nonindustrial societies, especially the activities that contribute to the sex-typed division of labor and patriarchy. To explain the cross-cultural findings, the authors consider social constructionism, evolutionary psychology, and their own biosocial theory. Supporting the biosocial analysis, sex differences derive from the interaction between the physical specialization of the sexes, especially female reproductive capacity, and the economic and social structural aspects of societies. This biosocial approach treats the psychological attributes of women and men as emergent given the evolved characteristics of the sexes, their developmental experiences, and their situated activity in society.

/pdf/a-cross-cultural-analysis-of-the-behavior-of-women-and-men-bntqdibaep.pdf

A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: implications for the origins of sex differences.

Understanding the introduction of farming and the adoption of Neolithic culture continues to be a major research objective in Europe. The authors make use of a new database of radiocarbon dates from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites to map the transition. While the overall effect is still a diffusion into Europe from the south-east, detailed spatial analysis reveals fascinating local variations: in some places change was rapid, and one population replaced another, in others it was gradual and owed to incoming ideas rather than people.

/pdf/neolithic-transition-in-europe-the-radiocarbon-record-1g5lmiq6c9.pdf

Neolithic transition in Europe: the radiocarbon record revisited

It is reasonable to expect that the global dispersal of modern humans was influenced by habitat variation in space and time; but many simulation models average such variation into a single, homogeneous surface across which the dispersal process is modelled. We present a demographic simulation model in which rates of spatial range expansion can be modified by local habitat values. The broad-scale vegetation cover of North America during the late last glacial is reconstructed and mapped at thousand-year intervals, 13,000-10,000 radiocarbon years BP. Results of the simulation of human dispersal into North America during the late last glacial are presented; output appears to match observed variation in occupancy of habitats during this period (as assessed from discard rates of diagnostic artefacts), if we assume that intrinsic population growth rates were fairly high and that local population densities varied as a function of environmental carrying capacity. Finally, a number of issues are raised relating to present limitations and possible future extensions of the simulation model.

/pdf/modelling-paleoindian-dispersals-2ecax4fnp6.pdf

Modelling Paleoindian dispersals

Synopsis:
The process of familiarization with and adaptation to unfamiliar landscapes has been integral to colonization and settlement throughout human history. Yet the workings of this process - its social, psychological, and environmental components, the influence of the process on later history, and indeed the full extent to which humans can truly know their habitat, are not well understood. This innovative and important volume presents the archaeological and anthropological foundations of the landscape learning process. Contributions apply the related fields of ethnography, cognitive psychology, and historical archaeology to the issues of individual exploration, development of trail systems, folk knowledge, social identity, and the role of the frontier in the growth of the modern world. A series of case studies examines the archaeological evidence for and interpretations of landscape learning from the movement of the first pre-modern humans into Europe, peoplings of the Old and New World at the end of the Ice Age, and colonization of the Pacific, to the English colonists at Jamestown. The final chapters summarize the implications of the landscape learning idea for our understanding of human history and set out a framework for future research. Understanding initial colonization is essential to addressing questions of how and why we live where we do. This significant and wide-ranging collection of work moves the theme away from the chronological curiosities of firsts and oldests into a view in which it is a process with characteristics and lessons of its own. Atholl Anderson, Australian National University, Australia, David Anthony, Hartwick College, USA, Dennis Blanton, College of William and Mary, USA, Stuart Fiedel, John Miln

The Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes: The Archaeology of Adaptation

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/~tcrnjst/SteelePolitis2009.pdf

AMS 14C dating of early human occupation of southern South America

The long bones of the human upper limb usually show lateral asymmetries of length. This pattern can be attributed either to the mechanical consequences of handedness bias or to genetic or hormonal factors acting directly on longitudinal bone growth. Length data was obtained from the long bones of the upper limbs of a large skeletal assemblage from Wharram Percy, Yorkshire (England), predominantly deriving from the 11th-16th centuries A.D. The Wharram Percy adult skeletons had a population distribution of lateral asymmetries of length in the humerus and in the humerus-plus-radius (a proxy arm length index) which closely parallels the pattern of behavioural handedness found in modern populations. This pattern was developing in the skeletons from the infant and juvenile age ranges, but was absent in the neonates (of whom 12 out of 14 had longer left humeri). We argue that this supports the environmental hypothesis that the ontogeny of long bone length asymmetry is consequent to the earlier development of lateral bias in mechanical loading of the upper limbs.

James Steele

Papers

Neolithic transition in Europe: the radiocarbon record revisited

Modelling Paleoindian dispersals

The Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes: The Archaeology of Adaptation

AMS 14C dating of early human occupation of southern South America

Handedness and directional asymmetry in the long bones of the human upper limb