Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
phone: +49 (0)341 3550 - 315
fax: +49 (0)341 3550 - 333
e-mail: cissewski@eva.mpg.de
Elspeth Ready

Senior Researcher
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 3550 323
E-mail: elspeth_ready@[>>> Please remove the brackets! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Office: level 1, room u1.15
Personal website: https://elspethr.github.io/
Research interests
I am an anthropologist and archaeologist with broad interests that originate in questions about the evolution of human subsistence adaptation and which have more recently led to a focus on using social network analysis to better incorporate social structural constraints and economic inequalities into behavioral ecological approaches to cooperation. Research based on my ethnographic fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic has focused on the role of traditional foods and food sharing in Inuit food security, resilience to climate change, and health and well-being. My archaeological research focuses on Neandertal subsistence ecology and on zooarchaeological methods.
Publications
2020
Jones, J. H., Ready, E., & Pisor, A. C. (2020). Want climate‐change adaptation? Evolutionary theory can help (advance online). American Journal of Human Biology, e23539. DOI BibTeX Endnote | |
Koster, J., Mcelreath, R., Hill, K., Yu, D., Shepard, G., Vliet, N. V., Gurven, M., Kaplan, H., Trumble, B., Bird, R. B., Bird, D., Codding, B., Coad, L., Pacheco-Cobos, L., Winterhalder, B., Lupo, K., Schmitt, D., Sillitoe, P., Franzen, M., Alvard, M., Venkataraman, V., Kraft, T., Endicott, K., Beckerman, S., Marks, S. A., Headland, T., Pangau-Adam, M., Siren, A., Kramer, K., Greaves, R., Reyes-García, V., Guèze, M., Duda, R., Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Gallois, S., Napitupulu, L., Ellen, R., Ziker, J., Nielsen, M. R., Ready, E., Healey, C., & Ross, C. (2020). The life history of human foraging: Cross-cultural and individual variation. Science Advances,6(26): eaax9070. ![]() | |
Ready, E. (2020). Climate colonialism and “adaptive capacity“ in the Arctic. American Journal of Physical Anthropology,171(S69), 229-229. DOI BibTeX Endnote | |
Ready, E., & Collings, P. (2020). “All the problems in the community are multifaceted and related to each other”: Inuit concerns in an era of climate change (advance online). American Journal of Human Biology. ![]() | |
Ready, E., Habecker, P., Abadie, R., Dávila-Torres, C. A., Rivera-Villegas, A., Khan, B., & Dombrowski, K. (2020). Comparing social network structures generated through sociometric and ethnographic methods. Field Methods,32(4), 416-432. ![]() | |
Ready, E., Habecker, P., Abadie, R., Khan, B., & Dombrowski, K. (2020). Competing forces of withdrawal and disease avoidance in the risk networks of people who inject drugs. PLoS One,15(6): e0235124. ![]() |
2019
Morin, E., Beauval, C., Boileau, A., Ready, E., & Laroulandie, V. (2019). The number of distinct elements: Extending a landmark-based counting unit to other taxa. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports,24, 773-784. DOI BibTeX Endnote | |
Power, E. A., & Ready, E. (2019). Cooperation beyond consanguinity: Post-marital residence, delineations of kin, and social support among South Indian Tamils. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences,374(1780): 20180070. DOI BibTeX Endnote | |
Ready, E. (2019). Why subsistence matters. Hunter Gatherer Research,3(4), 635-649. DOI BibTeX Endnote | |
Ready, E., & Morin, E. (2019). Preliminary analysis of faunal remains from three Middle Paleolithic deposits in Charente, France. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports,24, 290-301. DOI BibTeX Endnote |
2018
Bliege Bird, R., Ready, E., & Power, E. A. (2018). The social significance of subtle signals. Nature Human Behaviour,2(7), 452-457. DOI BibTeX Endnote | |
Power, E. A., & Ready, E. (2018). Building bigness: Reputation, prominence, and social capital in rural South India. American Anthropologist,120(3), 444-459. ![]() | |
Ready, E. (2018). Sharing-based social capital associated with harvest production and wealth in the Canadian Arctic. PLoS One,13(3): e0193759. ![]() | |
Ready, E. (2018). Who, being loved, is poor?: Poverty, marriage, and changing family structures in the Canadian Arctic. Human Organization,77(2), 122-134. DOI BibTeX Endnote | |
Ready, E., & Collings, P. (2018). Rethinking “big problems” in Arctic health. Anthropology News,59(1), e71-e76. DOI BibTeX Endnote | |
Ready, E., & Power, E. A. (2018). Why wage earners hunt: Food sharing, social structure, and influence in an Arctic mixed economy. Current Anthropology,59(1), 74-97. DOI BibTeX Endnote |
2017
Morin, E., Ready, E., Boileau, A., Beauval, C., & Coumont, M.-P. (2017). Problems of identification and quantification in archaeozoological analysis, Part I: Insights from a blind test. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory,24(3), 886-937. DOI BibTeX Endnote | |
Morin, E., Ready, E., Boileau, A., Beauval, C., & Coumont, M.-P. (2017). Problems of identification and quantification in archaeozoological analysis, Part II: Presentation of an alternative counting method. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory,24(3), 938-973. DOI BibTeX Endnote |
2016
Ready, E. (2016). Challenges in the assessment of Inuit food security. Arctic,69(3), 266-280. DOI BibTeX Endnote |
2015
Ready, E. (2015). Ensuring country food access for a food secure future in Nunavik. Arctic and International Relations Series: Quebec policy on the Arctic: Challenges and perspectives, (1), 50-54. ![]() |
2013
Morin, E., & Ready, E. (2013). Foraging goals and transport decisions in Western Europe during the paleolithic and early holocene. In J. L. Clark, & J. D. Speth ( BibTeX Endnote | |
Ready, E. (2013). Neandertal foraging during the late Mousterian in the Pyrenees: New insights based on faunal remains from Gatzarria Cave. Journal of Archaeological Science,40(3), 1568-1578. DOI BibTeX Endnote |
2010
Ready, E. (2010). Neandertal man the hunter: A history of Neandertal subsistence. vis-à-vis: Explorations in Anthropology,10(1), 58-80. ![]() |