Lecturer
Email: jgautney@email.unc.edu
Phone: (919) 962-8374
Areas of Interest:
Population demography in human evolution, paleoecology, modern human adaptation and variation, reticulate evolution and hybridization, origins of the genus Homo, acceleration in human evolution, Neandertals, phylogenetic systematics, computational phylogenetics.
Education:
Ph.D., Tulane University, 2016 (anticipated)
M.A. Tulane University, 2013
B.A. California State University, Sacramento, 2007
Research and Activities:
My research has focused on applying computational phylogenetic methods to the hominin fossil record. Specifically, I am interested in exploring the potential for interspecific hybridization between hominin species by employing novel analytic methods borrowed from evolutionary biology and bioinformatics. Additionally, I am interested in how these methods may useful in understanding relationships between closely related extant primates.
I am also interested in paleoecology, paleodemography and climate change during the late Pleistocene, and recently finished a project involving Pleistocene population density and LGM habitable land area calculations in the Old World. I am currently using similar methods to study habitable land area and population demography during periods of climatic extreme in the New World.
Selected Publications:
Gautney JG, Holliday TW. 2015. New Estimations of Habitable Land Area and Human Population Size at the Last Glacial Maximum. Journal of Archaeological Science. 58:103-112
Holliday TW, Gautney JR, Friedl, L. 2014. Right for the Wrong Reasons: Reflections on Modern Human Origins in the Post-Neandertal Genome Era. Current Anthropology. 55(6): 696-724.