Andre Costopoulos
Biographic Data
| ID | 147815 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Andre Costopoulos |
| GIVEN NAMES | Andre |
| FAMILY NAME | Costopoulos |
| SIGNATURE | COSTOPOULOS A |
| AFFILIATIONS | McGill University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 53 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Changing the Landscape of Archaeological Publishing
Disseminating research is a key component of scholarly labor, but the costs and benefits of the current structure of academic publishing are underexamined within anthropology. This paper brings together a range of authors from across archaeology and cultural anthropology to summarize current issues in archaeological publishing and offer potential interventions at multiple scales. The paper is divided into five core topics. “Ideology” discusses th…
Agent-based model experiments cast doubt on Dunnell’s adaptive waste explanation for cultural elaboration
Ancient monuments are puzzling from an evolutionary perspective. It is obvious that their construction would have been costly in terms of energy, but it is not clear how they would have enhanced reproductive success. In the late 1980s, Robert Dunnell proposed a solution to this conundrum. He argued that wasting energy on monuments and other forms of what he called “cultural elaboration” was adaptive in highly variable environments. Here, we repor…
Emerging Lingo-Cultural Inequality in Infant Autopsy in Quebec, Canada
Settlement choice under conditions of rapid shoreline displacement in Wemindji Cree Territory, subarctic Quebec
Human Expeditions
The Secret to Human Success Is Being Half-Smart and Half-Social
Does Environmental Knowledge Inhibit Hominin Dispersal
We investigated the relationship between the dispersal potential of a hominin population, its local-scale foraging strategies, and the characteristics of the resource environment using an agent-based modeling approach. In previous work we demonstrated that natural selection can favor a relatively low capacity for assessing and predicting the quality of the resource environment, especially when the distribution of resources is highly clustered. Th…
The role of spatial foresight in models of hominin dispersal
Can simulation be more than a heuristic tool for studying belief systems
Computer simulation of human social systems has a long history, and has properly been concerned from the start with belief systems. While the earliest simulation efforts harnessed the power of comp
Paleoshorelines and prehistory on the eastern Bothnian Bay coast (Finland)
Research on the relation between the natural environment and human society in northwest coastal Finland between 6500 and 4000 cal BP shows a strong relation between regional environmental variability and changes in human society. It is not only the environmental change but also the regional variability in shoreline displacement that triggered changes in hunter-gatherer society in Finland. Postglacial land uplift caused a reduction of the distance…
Social Complexity in the Mid-Holocene Northeastern Bothnian Gulf
There was a period of reduced mobility, increased population density, and social complexity among hunter–gatherers in northern Bothnian prehistory between about 4050 and 2050 cal BC. We argue that this was made possible by a combination of physical and social factors that include the shortening of the coastline due to isostatic land uplift, the reduction of distances between major river mouths along the Bothnian coast, and the local variability i…
What Drives the Evolution of Hunter–Gatherer Subsistence Technology? A Reanalysis of the Risk Hypothesis with Data from the Pacific Northwest
Recent studies have suggested that the decisions that hunter–gatherers make about the diversity and complexity of their subsistence toolkits are strongly affected by risk of resource failure. However, the risk proxies and samples employed in these studies are potentially problematic. With this in mind, we retested the risk hypothesis with data from hunter–gatherer populations who lived in the northwest coast and plateau regions of the Pacific Nor…
A new Shoreline displacement model for the last 7 ka from eastern James Bay, Canada
The shoreline displacement history of the eastern James Bay lowlands in the last 7 ka has been investigated by means of AMS radiocarbon dating of sediments cored from wetlands. We present twelve radiocarbon dates on macrofossils from six sites spread along a gradient of increasing land age and elevation. Palynomorph analysis (pollen, spores, and dinoflagellate cysts) was used to define the isolation stratigraphy. During the last 7 ka the shorelin…
The Evitable Route to Zealotry
Bruce Graham Trigger (1937-2006)
Lithic raw material physical properties and use-wear accrual
On Artificial Trends in Comparative Studies using Standard Cross-Cultural Sample Data
Apologiaof Classical Evolutionism
Additional informationNotes on contributorsANDRE COSTOPOULOSANDRE COSTOPOULOS is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His research deals with social evolution and the computer simulation of social networks in anthropology. His recent publications on the subject include Playful Agents, Inexorable Process: Elements of a Coherent Theory of Iteration in Anthropological Simulation (Archeologia e Calcolatori …
On Comparative Studies Using Standard Cross-Cultural Sample Data
The Electronic Dissertation
Cornelius Holtorf's article in Internet Archaeology, Issue 6 (1999) is a strident call for a radical application of hypermedia techniques to archaeological publishing. Like Holtorf, I recently produced and submitted a Ph.D. dissertation on electronic medium entitled Simulation and Modelling for Anthropological Archaeology (Costopoulos, 1999). My experience of the process, however, was quite different from Holtorf's. While his work concentrates on…
Lithic raw material physical properties and use-wear accrual
Social Complexity in the Mid-Holocene Northeastern Bothnian Gulf
There was a period of reduced mobility, increased population density, and social complexity among hunter–gatherers in northern Bothnian prehistory between about 4050 and 2050 cal BC. We argue that this was made possible by a combination of physical and social factors that include the shortening of the coastline due to isostatic land uplift, the reduction of distances between major river mouths along the Bothnian coast, and the local variability i…
The role of spatial foresight in models of hominin dispersal
Does Environmental Knowledge Inhibit Hominin Dispersal
We investigated the relationship between the dispersal potential of a hominin population, its local-scale foraging strategies, and the characteristics of the resource environment using an agent-based modeling approach. In previous work we demonstrated that natural selection can favor a relatively low capacity for assessing and predicting the quality of the resource environment, especially when the distribution of resources is highly clustered. Th…
On Artificial Trends in Comparative Studies using Standard Cross-Cultural Sample Data
On Comparative Studies Using Standard Cross-Cultural Sample Data
The Evitable Route to Zealotry
The Electronic Dissertation
Cornelius Holtorf's article in Internet Archaeology, Issue 6 (1999) is a strident call for a radical application of hypermedia techniques to archaeological publishing. Like Holtorf, I recently produced and submitted a Ph.D. dissertation on electronic medium entitled Simulation and Modelling for Anthropological Archaeology (Costopoulos, 1999). My experience of the process, however, was quite different from Holtorf's. While his work concentrates on…
Apologiaof Classical Evolutionism
Additional informationNotes on contributorsANDRE COSTOPOULOSANDRE COSTOPOULOS is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His research deals with social evolution and the computer simulation of social networks in anthropology. His recent publications on the subject include Playful Agents, Inexorable Process: Elements of a Coherent Theory of Iteration in Anthropological Simulation (Archeologia e Calcolatori …
On Comparative Studies Using Standard Cross-Cultural Sample Data
Bruce Graham Trigger (1937-2006)
Lithic raw material physical properties and use-wear accrual
On Artificial Trends in Comparative Studies using Standard Cross-Cultural Sample Data
A new Shoreline displacement model for the last 7 ka from eastern James Bay, Canada
The shoreline displacement history of the eastern James Bay lowlands in the last 7 ka has been investigated by means of AMS radiocarbon dating of sediments cored from wetlands. We present twelve radiocarbon dates on macrofossils from six sites spread along a gradient of increasing land age and elevation. Palynomorph analysis (pollen, spores, and dinoflagellate cysts) was used to define the isolation stratigraphy. During the last 7 ka the shorelin…
The Evitable Route to Zealotry
What Drives the Evolution of Hunter–Gatherer Subsistence Technology? A Reanalysis of the Risk Hypothesis with Data from the Pacific Northwest
Recent studies have suggested that the decisions that hunter–gatherers make about the diversity and complexity of their subsistence toolkits are strongly affected by risk of resource failure. However, the risk proxies and samples employed in these studies are potentially problematic. With this in mind, we retested the risk hypothesis with data from hunter–gatherer populations who lived in the northwest coast and plateau regions of the Pacific Nor…
Can simulation be more than a heuristic tool for studying belief systems
Computer simulation of human social systems has a long history, and has properly been concerned from the start with belief systems. While the earliest simulation efforts harnessed the power of comp
Paleoshorelines and prehistory on the eastern Bothnian Bay coast (Finland)
Research on the relation between the natural environment and human society in northwest coastal Finland between 6500 and 4000 cal BP shows a strong relation between regional environmental variability and changes in human society. It is not only the environmental change but also the regional variability in shoreline displacement that triggered changes in hunter-gatherer society in Finland. Postglacial land uplift caused a reduction of the distance…
Social Complexity in the Mid-Holocene Northeastern Bothnian Gulf
There was a period of reduced mobility, increased population density, and social complexity among hunter–gatherers in northern Bothnian prehistory between about 4050 and 2050 cal BC. We argue that this was made possible by a combination of physical and social factors that include the shortening of the coastline due to isostatic land uplift, the reduction of distances between major river mouths along the Bothnian coast, and the local variability i…
The role of spatial foresight in models of hominin dispersal
Does Environmental Knowledge Inhibit Hominin Dispersal
We investigated the relationship between the dispersal potential of a hominin population, its local-scale foraging strategies, and the characteristics of the resource environment using an agent-based modeling approach. In previous work we demonstrated that natural selection can favor a relatively low capacity for assessing and predicting the quality of the resource environment, especially when the distribution of resources is highly clustered. Th…
Human Expeditions
The Secret to Human Success Is Being Half-Smart and Half-Social
Emerging Lingo-Cultural Inequality in Infant Autopsy in Quebec, Canada
Settlement choice under conditions of rapid shoreline displacement in Wemindji Cree Territory, subarctic Quebec
Agent-based model experiments cast doubt on Dunnell’s adaptive waste explanation for cultural elaboration
Ancient monuments are puzzling from an evolutionary perspective. It is obvious that their construction would have been costly in terms of energy, but it is not clear how they would have enhanced reproductive success. In the late 1980s, Robert Dunnell proposed a solution to this conundrum. He argued that wasting energy on monuments and other forms of what he called “cultural elaboration” was adaptive in highly variable environments. Here, we repor…
Changing the Landscape of Archaeological Publishing
Disseminating research is a key component of scholarly labor, but the costs and benefits of the current structure of academic publishing are underexamined within anthropology. This paper brings together a range of authors from across archaeology and cultural anthropology to summarize current issues in archaeological publishing and offer potential interventions at multiple scales. The paper is divided into five core topics. “Ideology” discusses th…
Geography (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (7 works) · Demography (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Archaeology (6 works) · Demography (6 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (6 works) · Anthropology (5 works) · Population (5 works)