Welcome

The centre facilitates inter-disciplinary research including gene-culture coevolution, evolutionary psychology, behavioural ecology, population genetics and cultural evolution. Our researchers are from anthropology, archaeology, biological sciences, business, mathematics and psychology, from Durham and externally.

Research Themes

Our research interests cover disease, domestication, innovation and social learning, mate choice, cultural diversification, and social systems.  Navigate using the left-hand panel to find out more.

• EHBEA 2012 Conference Flyer (last modified: 18 October 2011)
• Tipping Points Workshop 2012 (last modified: 20 February 2012)

News Archive

CCBC Summer Meeting: 30th June 2011, 1-5pm, Anthropology common Room.

Seminar: Tom Morgan, Laland Lab, St Andrews. Cultural transmission biases in humans. 20th June 2011, 2pm, Anthropology seminar room.

Workshop: Centre for Iranian Cultural Studies first workshop on June 6th 2011: 'From Human Niche Construction to Imperial Power: The Next Step in the Study of Ancient Iranian Water Systems'. 

Theme issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. on Human Niche Construction, 27th March 2011.

Seminar: Counting coconuts for the chief: coevolution in language and culture
Fiona Jordan (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics). 4th May 2011.

2010

Congratulations! £427K  NERC grant ‘Reconsidering Austronesian Homeland and dispersal models using  genetic and morphological signatures of domestic animals’

Caroline Walters is starting an interdisciplinary PhD scholarship to investigate cultural influences on disease and health-related behaviour (start Oct 2010).

Workshop: ‘Archaeological Phylogenies Clinic’ organised by Tehrani and Arroyo-Kalin to develop cultural phylogenetics projects using archaeological datasets (May 2010).

Workshop: ‘Darwinising Folklore Workshop’ organised by Tehrani and M. Smith to develop AHRC grant proposal on evolution of folktales and folk music with British-based ethnomusicologists and folklorists (June 2010)

Workshop: ‘The Spread of Disease with Farming in Neolithic Europe’ (organised by Chris Scarre & Jeremy Kendal).

Workshop: ‘Interdisciplinary view of Plague in rural and urban Europe’ (organized by Rus Hoelzel)

Workshop: “The influence of visual media on physical attraction: cross-cultural studies” (organised by Lynda Boothroyd)

Workshop: Agent-based modelling workshop on hominoid foraging strategies (organised by Bob Layton)

Workshop: ‘Innovation versus Invention in the Creative Industries’ – workshop combining biological, economics, media and anthropological perspsectives, co-sponsored by CCI (ARC Centre), Queensland University of Technology. Organised by Alex Bentley.

2009

CCBC co-director Alex Bentley will be leading one of the five working sections on this 5-year project to study Tipping Points in economic 
and environmental systems.

Using phylogenetic analysis, Jamie Tehrani has discovered ancient origins of fairy tale evolution. The work, presented at the British Science Festival, has been widely reported.
Sept 2009.

CCBC has been awarded a substantial seed-corn fund from Durham University to develop interdisciplinary grant applications through 2009-10.