Elic Weitzel

The Behavioral Ecology of Food Cambridge Core - Prehistory - The Behavioral Ecology of Food

Our new Element with @universitypress.cambridge.org is out today!

Please check out "The Behavioral Ecology of Food: Bridging the Archaeological and the Contemporary" by Natalie Munro and I.

You can download a PDF for free here until Feb. 10th: www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Thank you to the Scientific Exploration Society for helping to fund this season of fieldwork in Guatemala!

Off to Guatemala! Thanks to the Scientific Exploration Society for their support!

Keep an eye out for the release of this Element in Feburary - hope you enjoy it!

We then illustrate our approach via a case study of sustainable fisheries management. We outline some useful behavioral ecology models, analyze archaeological data on sustainable & unsustainable resource use, and then apply theoretical insights from behavioral ecology to assess fisheries policy.

We particularly focus on behavioral ecology (the study of behavioral adaptation to local ecological conditions) as one such body of theory. We explain what behavioral ecology is, respond to some criticisms of it, and illustrate how we can use it to understand human behavior in the past and present.

Instead, we argue that theory allows us to bridge archaeology and policy. By testing predictions derived from broad and general bodies of theory using archaeological data, we can help to shape the theories (and larger worldview) that policymakers use to try and improve our world today.

In this booklet, we present a vision for how archaeology can better impact present-day environmental and public policy.

Most policymakers see little relevance of archaeology to their work since the archaeological past is so often not analagous to the present. This makes direct analogy problematic.

I'm pleased to announce that Natalie Munro and I have authored an Element through @universitypress.cambridge.org on "The Behavioral Ecology of Food: Bridging the Archaeological and the Contemporary."

It will be released in February, and you can pre-order it here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/b...

Hopefully you'll enjoy this Element once it's released this February!

We end with a case study of sustainable fisheries management. We outline some useful behavioral ecology models, some relevant archaeological case studies about sustainable/unsustainable resource use, and then offer insights into fisheries management policy informed by behavioral ecology.

In this Element, we focus on behavioral ecology as one such body of theory. We explain what it is, what it isn't, and how we can use it to explain human behavior.

We then discuss common criticisms of behavioral ecology and clarify how the approach integrates with other ecological perspectives.

We propose that a better route for archaeologists to pursue is through theory. If we test broad, generalizable theoretical models using archaeological data, we can contribute to policy not through tenuous analogy, but by shaping the theories that policymakers use to try and improve our world today.

We begin this Element by outlining a way for archaeology to better pursue present-day policy relevance. Most of what we study as archaeologists is not analogous to the present (e.g., different climate, politics, economics), and therefore policymakers rarely see the relevance of archaeological data.

For any graduate students in anthropology/archaeology, the Smithsonian is accepting applications for a 10-week in-residence fellowship to use the Museum of Natural History collections to study a topic related to Indigenous cultures. $15k award. Apps due Aug 1!

fellowships.si.edu/opportunity/...

How Economics Nearly Drove New England’s White-Tailed Deer to Extinction - UConn Today “Once you start commodifying animals and commodifying nature, problems happen”

What can centuries-old deer bones teach us about conservation? 🦌 @elicweitzel.bsky.social analyzes these bones to study unsustainable practices of the past. His work could help us avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

today.uconn.edu/2025/06/how-...

How Economics Nearly Drove New England’s White-Tailed Deer to Extinction - UConn Today “Once you start commodifying animals and commodifying nature, problems happen”

My new paper on early evidence for colonial-era white-tailed deer declines was just featured in UConn Today!

“Once you start commodifying animals and commodifying nature, problems happen.”

today.uconn.edu/2025/06/how-...

Thanks Dr. J! Hope you're well!

Thanks! Yes, there was - here's a plot from Camille Kessler's 2024 paper in Mol. Bio. & Evo. Top is genetic data, bottom is estimated historical pop & restocking data. Purple is white-tails. Seems the bottleneck still impacts their genome, but they have recovered well considering how severe it was

The rise and fall – and rise again – of white-tailed deer A new archaeological study finds early evidence of white-tailed deer declines in the 17th century, likely driven by the commodification of deerskins under colonial capitalism.

Check out my new article in @us.theconversation.com about white-tailed deer historical ecology! It's a broad overview of the entirety of human-deer interactions in the eastern U.S., but also features some of my latest work on the topic.

theconversation.com/the-rise-and...

Profs & Pints Northern Virginia: Deer to Us Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Deer to Us,” on more than 12,000 years of interactions between eastern North America’s white-tailed deer and human residents, with Elic Weitzel, postdocto...

Giving a talk on deer historical ecology in Sterling, VA next month at Crooked Run Fermentation Brewery! Come grab a drink and hang out! Tickets available below:

www.ticketleap.events/tickets/prof...

The lesson here is that if we want sustainability, don't worry about demography as much as commodification. Turning nature into commodities that certain folks can profit from helps divorce consumption from real need. Especially when consumption is for social signaling of status, like with deerskins.

The reason deer were overhunted seems to have been commodification within a new capitalist economy. Fashionable deerskin clothes may have inspired greater deer consumption in the 17th century, depleting deer populations even though there were fewer consumers around (images from Spiers 1973)

This suggests that population policy today seeking to reduce human numbers for environmentalist reasons may not work. All else being equal, fewer people means more sustainability - but all else is not equal. Contrary to common arguments, there's more to the story than just consumer demography...

Importantly, this shows that sustainability isn't always related to human population size. Human pops were low in the 17th c. as epidemics and colonial violence reduced Native pops, and Europeans hadn't arrived in force yet. Deer were overhunted at a time when there were fewer people than before.

This is based on higher juvenile mortality in the 17th century than previously. Hunters generally don't take smaller juveniles unless they can't get larger adults, so this indicates hunting pressure depleted adults. The data for this come partly from aging mandibles, like this one from a fawn.

Pleased to share my new paper on the Commodification of White-Tailed Deer in 17th century Southern New England! In it, I find evidence for increased hunting pressure on deer from the late 17th c., suggesting their population declined soon after Europeans arrived

authors.elsevier.com/a/1l60c-JVc4...

The lesson here is that if we want sustainability, don't worry about demography as much as commodification. Turning nature into commodities that certain folks can profit from helps divorce consumption from real need. Especially when consumption is for social signaling of status, like with deerskins.

The reason deer were overhunted seems to have been commodification within a new capitalist economy. Fashionable deerskin clothes may have inspired greater deer consumption in the 17th century, depleting deer populations even though there were fewer consumers around (images from Spiers 1973)

This suggests that population policy today seeking to reduce human numbers for environmentalist reasons may not work. All else being equal, fewer people usually means more sustainable resource use - but all else is not equal. There's more to the story than just consumer demography...