Skip to main content
 

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.