Alex Bentley 
Professor of Anthropology, University of Tennessee
Interests: Culture evolution, computational social science, isotopic analysis of skeletal remains
Professor Alex Bentley
Anthropology Department
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37916
Researching culture evolution and diversification, the spread of information and behaviour, and collective decision making.
New book:
R. Alexander Bentley and Michael O'Brien (2017) The Acceleration of Cultural Change: From Ancestors to Algorithms. (M.I.T. Press)
"The authors take a long view of cultural change in which the more recent developments -- social networks, memes, big data -- come into perspective as extreme cases of the creative and disruptive potentials of our tool-oriented species." - Inside Higher Ed, November 2017.
"This book offers an intelligent model for predictions on culture, and connects historical dots to tell us something about future events. But, as the book also explains, that future remains impossible to predict. Yet, knowledge of the evolution of culture and technology does offer a great insight on how culture changes and survives over time. And the authors succeed in presenting this in this playful book." - Jochem Kootstra, LSE Review of Books
Highlighted publications:
Ruck, D., R.A. Bentley, A. Acerbi, P. Garnett & D.J. Hruschka (2017) Role of neutral evolution in word turnover during centuries of English word popularity. Advances in Complex Systems 20: 1750012.
Degryse, P. and R.A. Bentley (2017). Archaeological geochemistry. In (W.M. White, ed.) Encyclopedia of Geochemistry, in press. Heidelberg: Springer.
Bentley, R.A., W.A. Brock, C.C.S. Caiado and M.J. O’Brien (2016). Evaluating reproductive decisions as discrete choices under social influence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 371: 20150154.
Caiado, C.C.S., W.A Brock, R.A. Bentley and M.J O'Brien (2016). Fitness landscapes among many options under social influence. Journal of Theoretical Biology 405: 5–16.
Bentley, R.A. & M.J. O’Brien (2015) Collective behaviour, uncertainty and environmental change. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 373(2055), DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2014.0461.
Acerbi, A., V. Lampos, P. Garnett & R.A. Bentley (2013) The expression of emotions in 20th century books. PLoS ONE 8(3): e59030.
Bentley, R.A., P. Bickle, L. Fibiger, G.M. Nowell, C.W. Dale, R.E.M. Hedges, J. Hamilton, J. Wahl, M. Francken, G. Grupe, E. Lenneis, M. Teschler-Nicola, R.-M. Arbogast, D. Hofmann & A. Whittle (2012). Community differentiation and kinship among Europe's first farmers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109: 9326-9330.
Bentley, R.A., M.J. O'Brien & W.A. Brock (2014). Mapping collective behavior in the big-data era. Behavioral & Brain Sciences 37: 63-119.
Bentley, R.A., A. Acerbi, V. Lampos, P. Ormerod (2014). Books average previous decade of economic misery. PLoS ONE 9(1): e83147.
Books:
R. Alexander Bentley and Michael O’Brien (2017). Ancestors to Algorithms: The Evolution of Cultural Evolution (M.I.T. Press)
Alex Bentley, Mark Earls and Michael O’Brien (2011). I’ll Have What She’s Having: Mapping Social Behavior. MIT Press.
“An extremely intelligent book, short and well expressed” — Kevin Duncan, Greatest Hits Blog.
“Many nice details” - Steven Poole, The Guardian
Professor Alex Bentley
Anthropology Department
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37916