Rebecca Bird
Professor of Anthropology
-
323A Carpenter Building
University Park, PA 16802 - rub33@psu.edu
- 814-863-2391
Research Summary
Gender division of labor in hunting and gathering, cooperation, costly signaling, indigenous conservation/land management, and fire ecology, drawing on theory, models, and methods from behavioral ecology and landscape ecology to answer questions about how local social contexts influence economic decision-making and how such decisions impact local ecological communities.
Huck Affiliations
Links
News Articles Featuring Rebecca Bird
Dec 18, 2019
Playing with tools—and weapons—was a ‘normal’ part of prehistoric childhood
Prehistoric children may have been cherished by their parents—but until recently, they’ve been neglected by many archaeologists, who assumed that childhood is simply about toys and games. Now, a new study adds to the growing literature that prehistoric children were hard workers, who learned from an early age to use the weapons and tools that would help them with the rigors of adulthood.
Full Article
Feb 08, 2019
Aboriginal Hunters’ Fires Help Restore an Australian Desert
A study of how the Martu shaped their land presents an example where humans seem to benefit an environment perceived as wilderness.
Full Article