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The Behavioral Ecology of Humans
The Behavioral Ecology of Humans
All of my research centers on the evolutionary ecology of human behaviors. I study how people both adapt to and modify their environments, with specific foci on natural resource use and foraging theory, landscape use and ideal distribution models, and agent-based modeling of broader adaptive decision-making processes like alloparental care.
Weitzel, Elic M. and Natalie D. Munro (2026) The Behavioral Ecology of Food: Bridging the Archaeological and the Contemporary. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. [link]
Weitzel, Elic M., Kurt M. Wilson, Laure Spake, Susan B. Schaffnit, Robert Lynch, Rebecca Sear, John H. Shaver, Mary K. Shenk, and Richard Sosis (2024) Cost structures and socioecological conditions impact the fitness outcomes of human alloparental care in agent-based model simulations. Evolution and Human Behavior 45:106613. [link]
Weitzel, Elic M. and Brian F. Codding (2022) The ideal distribution model in archaeological settlement patterning. Environmental Archaeology 27(4):349-356. [link]
The Historical Ecology of White-Tailed Deer
The Historical Ecology of White-Tailed Deer
A large part of my research investigates white-tailed deer hunting in eastern North America, from 16,000 years ago to the present. Specifically, I am analyzing how climate change, anthropogenic ecosystem engineering, human demography, and capitalist commodification of the species have impacted deer abundance, morphology, and behavior over time.
Weitzel, Elic M. (2025) Commodification of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in 17th century southern New England. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 79:101693. [link]
Weitzel, Elic M. (2023) Resilience of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to human hunting in precolonial New England: The faunal remains from the Morgan Site (6HT120), Rocky Hill, Connecticut. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 48:103913. [link]
Weitzel, Elic M. (2023) Environmental rebound and disruption of Indigenous land management following European colonization of southern New England. In Questioning Rebound: People and Environmental Change in the Protohistoric and Early Historic Americas, edited by Emily Lena Jones and Jacob L. Fisher. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 97-115.
Weitzel, Elic M. (2021) Investigating overhunting of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the Late Holocene Middle Tennessee River Valley. Southeastern Archaeology 40(1):1-19. [link]
Image credit: Susan Walton
Origins of Domestication
Origins of Domestication
I am also working to better understand the ecological context of the initial domestication of native crops in interior eastern North America. This project tests the hypothesis that food production is a technological innovation that follows from economic intensification and reduced efficiency in the subsistence economy. To assess this, I am working with several colleagues to analyze human population proxies, site location data, and animal bone remains from the southeastern and midwestern United States.
Weitzel, Elic M., Brian F. Codding, Stephen B. Carmody, and David W. Zeanah (2022) Food production and domestication produced both cooperative and competitive interpersonal dynamics in eastern North America. Environmental Archaeology 27(4):388-401. [link]
Weitzel, Elic M. (2019) Declining foraging efficiency prior to initial domestication in the Middle Tennessee River Valley. American Antiquity 84(2):191-214. [link]
Weitzel, Elic M. and Brian F. Codding (2016) Population growth as a driver of initial domestication in Eastern North America. Royal Society Open Science 3(8):160319. [link]
Human Population Ecology and Demography
Human Population Ecology and Demography
I am also very interested in the population ecology of humans and how our demography helps to shape our interactions with the environment, specifically with other species. Drawing on summed probability distributions of radiocarbon dates as proxies for population size, as well as historical census data, I have modeled long-term changes in both human and Pleistocene megafauna populations. These analyses have explored the causes of terminal Pleistocene megafauna extinctions, the role of geography in shaping demography, and other questions.
O’Keefe, F. Robin., Regan E. Dunn, Elic M. Weitzel, Michael R. Waters, Lisa N. Martinez, Wendy J. Binder, John R. Southon, Joshua E. Cohen, Julie A. Meachen, Larisa R.G. DeSantis, Matthew E. Kirby, Elena Ghezzo, Joan B. Coltrain, Benjamin T. Fuller, Aisling B. Farrell, Gary T. Takeuchi, Glen MacDonald, Edward B. Davis, and Emily L. Lindsey (2023) Pre-Younger Dryas megafaunal extirpation at Rancho La Brea linked to fire-driven state shift. Science 381(6659). [link]
Weitzel, Elic M., Erina Baci, and Daniel Plekhov (2023) Geographic predictors of early 20th century northern Albanian tribal demography. Kosova Anthropologica 1(1):1-21. [link]
Broughton, Jack M. and Elic M. Weitzel (2018) Population reconstructions for humans and megafauna suggest mixed causes for North American Pleistocene extinctions. Nature Communications 9(1):5441. [link]
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