Downey
Biographic Data
| ID | 42063 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Downey |
| FAMILY NAME | Downey |
| SIGNATURE | DOWNEY |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7671-6759 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 90 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The myth of independence
Deep ancestry of collapsing networks of nomadic hunter–gatherers in Borneo
Theories of early cooperation in human society often draw from a small sample of ethnographic studies of surviving populations of hunter–gatherers, most of which are now sedentary. Borneo hunter–gatherers (Punan, Penan) have seldom figured in comparative research because of a decades-old controversy about whether they are the descendants of farmers who adopted a hunting and gathering way of life. In 2018 we began an ethnographic study of a group …
Training wicked scientists for a world of wicked problems
Humanity faces a number of wicked problems, from global climate change and the coronavirus pandemic to systemic racism and widening economic inequality. Since such complex and dynamic problems are plagued by disagreement among stakeholders over their nature and cause, they are notoriously difficult to solve. This commentary argues that if humanity truly aspires to address the grand challenges of today and tomorrow, then graduate education must be…
Soils, landscapes, and cultural concepts of favor and disfavor within complex adaptive systems and ResourceCultures
James, B. R., S. Teuber, J. J. Miera, S. Downey, J. Henkner, T. Knopf, F. A. Correa, B. Höpfer, S. Scherer, A. Michaelis, B. M. Wessel, K. S. Gibbons, P. Kühn, and T. Scholten. 2021. Soils, landscapes, and cultural concepts of favor and disfavor within complex adaptive systems and ResourceCultures: human-land interactions during the Holocene. Ecology and Society 26(1):6. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12155-260106
The Milpa Game
A radiocarbon chronology of European flint mines suggests a link to population patterns
Q'eqchi' Maya Swidden Agriculture, Settlement History, and Colonial Enterprise in Modern Belize
This study reconstructs the settlement history for twelve related Q'eqchi' Maya villages in the Toledo District of southern Belize using oral history interviews, archival records, and the Catholic parish birth register. The study evaluates two hypotheses for explaining the identified patterns: carrying capacity, which suggests that increasing village populations and environmental limits drove new settlements, and political ecology, which suggests…
Regional population collapse followed initial agriculture booms in mid-Holocene Europe
Following its initial arrival in SE Europe 8,500 years ago agriculture spread throughout the continent, changing food production and consumption patterns and increasing population densities. Here we show that, in contrast to the steady population growth usually assumed, the introduction of agriculture into Europe was followed by a boom-and-bust pattern in the density of regional populations. We demonstrate that summed calibrated radiocarbon date …
The origins and spread of stock-keeping
It has long been recognised that the proportions of Neolithic domestic animal species—cattle, pig and sheep/goat—vary from region to region, but it has hitherto been unclear how much this variability is related to cultural practices or to environmental constraints. This study uses hundreds of faunal assemblages from across Neolithic Europe to reveal the distribution of animal use between north and south, east and west. The remarkable results pres…
The impact of the Neolithic agricultural transition in Britain
An ongoing Austronesian expansion in Island Southeast Asia
Can Properties of Labor-Exchange Networks Explain the Resilience of Swidden Agriculture
Despite the fact that swidden agriculture has been the subject of decades of research, questions remain about the extent to which it is constrained by demographic growth and if it can adapt to environmental limits. Here, social network analysis is used to analyze farmer labor-exchange networks within a chronosequence of five Q'eqchi' Maya villages where swidden agriculture is used. Results suggest that changes in land-use patterns, network struct…
A robust budding model of Balinese water temple networks
Ethnohistory, genetics and simulation are used to propose a new 'budding model' to describe the historical processes by which complex irrigation communities may come into existence. We review two alternative theories, Wittfogel's top-down state-formation theory and common-pool resource management, and suggest that a budding model would better account for existing archaeological and ethnographic descriptions of a well-studied network of irrigation…
Anthropology and Environment Section
From Simulation Model to Critique of Structuration
In this paper I use a simulation model of Learning to Labor (Willis 1981) to critique Giddens’ structuration theory (Giddens 1984). The simulation model represents interactions between a group of non-conformist boys from Birmingham, England and an industrial capitalist business. I present the results of three simulation experiments designed to test the limits of structuration theory by exploring when decision-making based in cultural meaning conf…
Archival archaeology. Frank Brown's notes on the citadel palace at Dura-Europos
Downey S. Archival archaeology. Frank Brown's notes on the citadel palace at Dura-Europos. In: Syria. Tome 69 fascicule 1-2, 1992. pp. 141-151
The impact of the Neolithic agricultural transition in Britain
An ongoing Austronesian expansion in Island Southeast Asia
A robust budding model of Balinese water temple networks
Ethnohistory, genetics and simulation are used to propose a new 'budding model' to describe the historical processes by which complex irrigation communities may come into existence. We review two alternative theories, Wittfogel's top-down state-formation theory and common-pool resource management, and suggest that a budding model would better account for existing archaeological and ethnographic descriptions of a well-studied network of irrigation…
The origins and spread of stock-keeping
It has long been recognised that the proportions of Neolithic domestic animal species—cattle, pig and sheep/goat—vary from region to region, but it has hitherto been unclear how much this variability is related to cultural practices or to environmental constraints. This study uses hundreds of faunal assemblages from across Neolithic Europe to reveal the distribution of animal use between north and south, east and west. The remarkable results pres…
Can Properties of Labor-Exchange Networks Explain the Resilience of Swidden Agriculture
Despite the fact that swidden agriculture has been the subject of decades of research, questions remain about the extent to which it is constrained by demographic growth and if it can adapt to environmental limits. Here, social network analysis is used to analyze farmer labor-exchange networks within a chronosequence of five Q'eqchi' Maya villages where swidden agriculture is used. Results suggest that changes in land-use patterns, network struct…
Deep ancestry of collapsing networks of nomadic hunter–gatherers in Borneo
Theories of early cooperation in human society often draw from a small sample of ethnographic studies of surviving populations of hunter–gatherers, most of which are now sedentary. Borneo hunter–gatherers (Punan, Penan) have seldom figured in comparative research because of a decades-old controversy about whether they are the descendants of farmers who adopted a hunting and gathering way of life. In 2018 we began an ethnographic study of a group …
From Simulation Model to Critique of Structuration
In this paper I use a simulation model of Learning to Labor (Willis 1981) to critique Giddens’ structuration theory (Giddens 1984). The simulation model represents interactions between a group of non-conformist boys from Birmingham, England and an industrial capitalist business. I present the results of three simulation experiments designed to test the limits of structuration theory by exploring when decision-making based in cultural meaning conf…
Q'eqchi' Maya Swidden Agriculture, Settlement History, and Colonial Enterprise in Modern Belize
This study reconstructs the settlement history for twelve related Q'eqchi' Maya villages in the Toledo District of southern Belize using oral history interviews, archival records, and the Catholic parish birth register. The study evaluates two hypotheses for explaining the identified patterns: carrying capacity, which suggests that increasing village populations and environmental limits drove new settlements, and political ecology, which suggests…
Archival archaeology. Frank Brown's notes on the citadel palace at Dura-Europos
Downey S. Archival archaeology. Frank Brown's notes on the citadel palace at Dura-Europos. In: Syria. Tome 69 fascicule 1-2, 1992. pp. 141-151
From Simulation Model to Critique of Structuration
In this paper I use a simulation model of Learning to Labor (Willis 1981) to critique Giddens’ structuration theory (Giddens 1984). The simulation model represents interactions between a group of non-conformist boys from Birmingham, England and an industrial capitalist business. I present the results of three simulation experiments designed to test the limits of structuration theory by exploring when decision-making based in cultural meaning conf…
Anthropology and Environment Section
A robust budding model of Balinese water temple networks
Ethnohistory, genetics and simulation are used to propose a new 'budding model' to describe the historical processes by which complex irrigation communities may come into existence. We review two alternative theories, Wittfogel's top-down state-formation theory and common-pool resource management, and suggest that a budding model would better account for existing archaeological and ethnographic descriptions of a well-studied network of irrigation…
Can Properties of Labor-Exchange Networks Explain the Resilience of Swidden Agriculture
Despite the fact that swidden agriculture has been the subject of decades of research, questions remain about the extent to which it is constrained by demographic growth and if it can adapt to environmental limits. Here, social network analysis is used to analyze farmer labor-exchange networks within a chronosequence of five Q'eqchi' Maya villages where swidden agriculture is used. Results suggest that changes in land-use patterns, network struct…
An ongoing Austronesian expansion in Island Southeast Asia
The impact of the Neolithic agricultural transition in Britain
Regional population collapse followed initial agriculture booms in mid-Holocene Europe
Following its initial arrival in SE Europe 8,500 years ago agriculture spread throughout the continent, changing food production and consumption patterns and increasing population densities. Here we show that, in contrast to the steady population growth usually assumed, the introduction of agriculture into Europe was followed by a boom-and-bust pattern in the density of regional populations. We demonstrate that summed calibrated radiocarbon date …
The origins and spread of stock-keeping
It has long been recognised that the proportions of Neolithic domestic animal species—cattle, pig and sheep/goat—vary from region to region, but it has hitherto been unclear how much this variability is related to cultural practices or to environmental constraints. This study uses hundreds of faunal assemblages from across Neolithic Europe to reveal the distribution of animal use between north and south, east and west. The remarkable results pres…
A radiocarbon chronology of European flint mines suggests a link to population patterns
Q'eqchi' Maya Swidden Agriculture, Settlement History, and Colonial Enterprise in Modern Belize
This study reconstructs the settlement history for twelve related Q'eqchi' Maya villages in the Toledo District of southern Belize using oral history interviews, archival records, and the Catholic parish birth register. The study evaluates two hypotheses for explaining the identified patterns: carrying capacity, which suggests that increasing village populations and environmental limits drove new settlements, and political ecology, which suggests…
The Milpa Game
Training wicked scientists for a world of wicked problems
Humanity faces a number of wicked problems, from global climate change and the coronavirus pandemic to systemic racism and widening economic inequality. Since such complex and dynamic problems are plagued by disagreement among stakeholders over their nature and cause, they are notoriously difficult to solve. This commentary argues that if humanity truly aspires to address the grand challenges of today and tomorrow, then graduate education must be…
Soils, landscapes, and cultural concepts of favor and disfavor within complex adaptive systems and ResourceCultures
James, B. R., S. Teuber, J. J. Miera, S. Downey, J. Henkner, T. Knopf, F. A. Correa, B. Höpfer, S. Scherer, A. Michaelis, B. M. Wessel, K. S. Gibbons, P. Kühn, and T. Scholten. 2021. Soils, landscapes, and cultural concepts of favor and disfavor within complex adaptive systems and ResourceCultures: human-land interactions during the Holocene. Ecology and Society 26(1):6. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12155-260106
Deep ancestry of collapsing networks of nomadic hunter–gatherers in Borneo
Theories of early cooperation in human society often draw from a small sample of ethnographic studies of surviving populations of hunter–gatherers, most of which are now sedentary. Borneo hunter–gatherers (Punan, Penan) have seldom figured in comparative research because of a decades-old controversy about whether they are the descendants of farmers who adopted a hunting and gathering way of life. In 2018 we began an ethnographic study of a group …
The myth of independence
Geography (10 works) · Archaeology (9 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (6 works) · Biology (6 works) · Ecology (6 works) · History (5 works) · Agriculture (4 works) · Demography (4 works) · Economics (4 works)