MICHAEL S. ALVARD

Associate Professor
Anthropology

Department of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
TAMU 4352
College Station, TX 77843-4352
Office: 223 Anthropology (map)
Phone: 979.862.3492
E-mail: alvard@tamu.edu
Department Web Page

Keywords: The margins of cultural and biological anthropology, evolutionary ethnology, behavioral and evolutionary ecology, cooperation, hunting, hunters and gatherers, Amazonia, southeast Asia

Interests:
Dr. Alvard is a socio-cultural anthropologist who uses evolutionary theory to learn about human behavior.

He has worked in Amazonian Peru with Piro and Machiguenga Indians, with Wana blowgun hunters and trappers in central Sulawesi, Indonesia, and recently with the Lamalera whale hunters of Lembata, Indonesia.

Work with the Piro focused on the relationship of hunters to their prey. He tested the idea that traditional hunters are natural conservationists. His work with the Wana was done in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy and examined the impact of Wana hunters on the prey within Morowali Nature Reserve, Sulawesi.

His recent work in Lamalera focuses on the problems associated with cooperation in the context of big game hunting. He is also involved in a MacArthur Foundation-funded cross culture study of the human preference for reciprocal fairness.

Disciplines:

• Behavioral Ecology
• Conservation Biology
• Evolutionary Anthropology

Selected publications:
Alvard M, Gillespie A (2004) Good Lamalera what hunters accrue reproductive benefits. Socioeconomic Aspects of Human Behavioral Ecology. Research in Economic Anthropology 23: 223-245.

Alvard M (2003) The adaptive nature of culture. Evolutionary Anthropology 12:136-149.

Alvard M (2003) Kinship, lineage identity, and an evolutionary perspective on the structure of cooperative big game hunting groups in Indonesia. Human Nature 14:129-163.

Alvard M, Nolin D (2002) Rousseau's whale hunt? Coordination among big game hunters. Current Anthropology 43(4):533-559.

Alvard M, Kuznar L (2001) The transition from hunting to animal husbandry: prey choice when harvests are deferred. American Anthropologist 103:295-311.