It's Xmas soon and that means present time. If you're hesitant about the benefits of giving toys to your kids, fret not - we (sheina lew-levy @Marc_M_Andersen Niels N. Johannsen) have got you covered a solid cross-cultural reasons to go all in 🎁🧸doi.org/10.1007/s10816…

Really thrilled that our paper on hunter-gatherer kids' toys and tools is out! This is a sneak peak at a bigger project we are just about to launch. Stay tuned! Forager Child Studies

📢📢 Brief peek out of maternity leave to promote a new paper which explores diversity in childcare networks in the Agta royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs… Part of a wonderful social issue on women's cooperation in #PhilTransB edited by Stephanie Fox Joan Silk @bascelza and Karen Kramer

I'm truly thrilled that our (@Marc_M_Andersen Felix Riede, others) work is finally ready to share! Over the past few years, we've been building this gorgeous database of kids play objects from around the world! play-object-play.au.dk/?page=1

📢📢We're very pleased to announce our 2023 New Investigator Award goes to the fantastic sheina lew-levy! Watch out for her at EHBEA2023 - UCL London April 18-21st and in the meantime check out her impressive work on social learning among forager children here: sites.google.com/view/sheinalew… 👏👏👏

Friends, I'm really thrilled that we have published this review paper on peer learning, with implications for cultural evolution. One of our coolest findings is that peer learning is pervasive, even in societies with strong norms for vertical transmission srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

🧵 At ISHGR, we're discussing unequal and extractive research practices within hunter-gatherer studies. As a step (of many) towards correcting course, the journal Hunter-Gatherer Research is launching the Community Companion Initiative. Sign up here: forms.gle/1T2fDPjhYFYsfz…

Cooperation and partner choice among Agta hunter-gatherer children: "Children preferentially shared with close kin (especially siblings), although older children increasingly shared with less-related individuals." dx.plos.org/10.1371/journa…

A nearly 6,000 year old piece of chewing gum, found in Scandinavia, perfectly preserved the DNA of its chewer. She was a young, hunter-gatherer girl, with dark skin, brown hair & blue eyes, who had recently eaten a meal of hazelnuts & duck. Archaeology is amazing.

🚨📜 Our new paper is out! Dr Daša Bombjaková, Romain Duda, Ghislain Loubelo, Jerome Lewis & I examine the harms and benefits of a school system designed for BaYaka children. liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/hg… (English) liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/hg… (French) youtube.com/watch?v=aB8VH0… (by Romain Duda)

A little snippet of children's lives in the ethnographic record: here's Malinowski describing "the children's republic" in Melanesia — "If the children make up their minds to do a certain thing... the grown-ups & even the chief himself... will not be able to stop them".

The journal Hunter-Gatherer Research ISHGR Liverpool University Press is looking for a couple of articles to complete an issue. Our time to decision is very short, and we'd love you to contribute! Please shoot me a message if you have any questions!!

Please apply and share!

Interested in hunter-gatherer studies, cultural evolution and child development and would like to pursue a PhD? UCL offers PhD funding regardless of your country. If you have a relevant project proposal drop me an email.

New book cover: one of my favorite photos from Arthur Wolf’s fieldnotes archive. It expresses central themes of my book: mutual gaze between kids and the anthropologist/photographer; children playing by themselves, without adult supervision, and in a somewhat forbidden place.

Join in for my talk on hunter-gatherer childhoods and global perspectives on child development next Tuesday as part of Radical Anthropology seminars. Free on Zoom or in person UCL Anthropology

Our new paper on the composition of hunter-gatherer caregivers are out! Children and unrelated people together contribute the most! cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Excited to share that I've been awarded an European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant! Our team will be investigating how children's independent peer cultures evolve, and what they contribute to community adaptation.

Congratulations to FCS Director Sheina Lew-Levy for being awarded a 2024 Philip Leverhulme Prize!

Excited to share that our Behav. Brain. Sci. target article — "Children as agents of cultural adaptation" — is online & open for commentary! In it, sheina lew-levy & I argue that children's peer cultures play an important & understudied role in cultural adaptation. cambridge.org/core/journals/…