I study the origins of culture and the coevolution of genes and culture. Human behavior is largely influence by socially learned information (culture). Culture is an inheritance system that parallels and interacts with the genetic system. My main research goal is to better understand how archaeological data can contribute to cultural evolution theory, much in the same way that paleontology interacts with genetics theory. I am thus particularly interested in how cultural evolution processes unfold at both the micro and the macro scale, and how one can transit between these two different observational scales.

My current research includes taking advantage of the large-scale nature of the archaeological record in order to parameterize our models of cultural evolution. For instance, I am estimating the pace of cultural evolution, as seen in the archaeological record, and comparing it to rates of biological evolution, as seen in the fossil record.

Another major focus of my research is the nature of the archaeological record itself. What is the temporal scale of the archeological record? What processes affect the scale of archaeological data, and how does that scale restrict the kind of research questions we can ask? By better understanding the nature of archaeological data, we can unleash the full contributive value of archaeology to the sciences of human behavior and evolution.