September 2026 Newsletter
Evolutionary Anthropology Society Newsletter
September 2026
Table of Contents
Introducing our new newsletter editor, Elic Weitzel
Conference abstract submission information
Donation portal
Searching for a webmaster
Social media links
Request for news and updates
Recent publications of interest
Greetings, members of the Evolutionary Anthropology Society!
Welcome to our September newsletter! We have a few updates for you as the new academic year begins.
Meet your newsletter editor
First, I am pleased to introduce myself as the incoming newsletter editor. My name is Elic Weitzel and I’m currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. I am a behavioral ecologist who mostly works in archaeological and historical settings in North America, with a general interest in how people use, manage, and control resources.
If you're curious, you can learn more about me at my website here: www.elicweitzel.com. Please don't hesitate to reach out at evanthsociety@gmail.com if you have suggestions for newsletter content!
For an example of my work and some shameless self-promotion, see my recently published booklet with the Cambridge Elements series here. Feel free to email me for a PDF!
Human Biology Association Conference
Start planning for the 2027 annual meeting of the Human Biology Association! EAS is affiliated with HBA and will be holding our annual meeting alongside theirs, which will be in May 2027 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To learn more about the Human Biology Association, you can find their website here. You can find details for the HBA annual meeting here.
EAS members are welcome to submit directly to HBA to join a general session, but are also encouraged to submit their abstracts to be part of the organized EAS symposium. This symposium will be the same lunchtime format as last year, and we ask those interested in participating to submit abstracts directly to us at EAS by October 1st for review.
Abstracts are then due to HBA by October 15th, while proposals for workshops are due November 16th. The submission system will open on September 15th.
The abstract for the EAS organized symposium is as follows and should be broad enough for you to link your research to this session. There will be an "EAS session" checkbox as part of the abstract submission form—please select this checkbox to join the EAS session!
Organizer: Siobhán Cully; Co-Chairs: Karen Kramer and Mary Shenk
Abstract: Evolutionary behavioral anthropology’s (EBA) origins are multi-threaded, including inspiration from the fields of animal behavior, economics, psychology, and ethnology. In over 50 years of existence, EBA has offered unique insights surrounding motivations for foraging, divisions of labor, cooperation, reproduction, parenting, and other aspects of human social life. Recent innovations in technology have added computational and laboratory methods to a toolkit once dominated by ethnographic and observational methods. These innovations have fueled nuanced investigations of the evolutionary origins and maintenance of complex behaviors and social patterning. In this Evolutionary Anthropology Society (EAS) symposium, contributors describe research that leverages novel frameworks and methods to advance EBA and bring its findings to broader audiences.
Additionally, please note that EAS will again be offering a Student Presentation Award, a New Investigator Award, and an Engaged Evolutionary Anthropology Award. If you would like to nominate someone for these awards, please let us know at evanthsociety@gmail.com. More information about submitting nominations for those awards will also follow in a subsequent newsletter. We are also recruiting award judges, so please reply to this email if you are able to serve as a judge.
Finally, we have some funds to support students and others in precarious positions who would like to attend the meeting, so please look for information about that closer to the spring.
Donate to EAS
We are now able to accept donations! EAS is still sorting out details of membership dues, but we will gladly accept donations in the interim to help support the Society’s activities. EAS is a 501(c)(3) organization and your donations are tax-deductible. You can donate here.
Searching for a webmaster
EAS needs a webmaster! If you have the necessary skills and are interested in stepping up to help us in this role, we would greatly appreciate it. The Society has a small amount of money that we can provide as compensation for this work. Please email us at evanthsociety@gmail.com if you are interested.
Follow us on social media!
EAS has a presence on Instagram (@evanthsociety), Bluesky (@evanthsociety.bsky.social), LinkedIn (Evolutionary Anthropology Society), Twitter/X (@evanthsociety), and Facebook (@evanthsociety). Please follow us on all platforms that you use!
Additionally, please let your colleagues, students, and friends know about EAS! Let them know that they too can sign up for our newsletter here.
Share your news and updates with us
If you have a recent publication, announcement, job opening, or other news, please share it with us! Email us at evanthsociety@gmail.com and we can add it to our newsletter to help you reach a wide audience of evolutionary anthropologists.
Recent publications of interest
Readers may be interested to read the recent (and extensive) back-and-forth in Evolution and Human Behavior concerning sex differences in foraging. The exchange was inspired by Venkataraman et al.’s (2026) article “The Meanings and Dividends of Man the Hunter,” and features comments by Agustin Fuentes, Ana Magdalena Hurtado, Jim O’Connell and Kristen Hawkes, and many others. You can view these comments across issues 3, 4, and 5.
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