Alex Bentley 
Professor and Head of Anthropology, University of Tennessee
Interests: Cultural evolution, computational social science, prehistoric Europe and Southeast Asia
Professor Alex Bentley
Anthropology Department
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
Researching culture evolution and diversification, the spread of information and behaviour, and collective decision making.
Recent books:
Michael O'Brien, R. Alexander Bentley and William A. Brock (2019). The Importance of Small Decisions. (M.I.T. Press).
- "...much fun to be had reading the garrulous banter.” Simon Ings, New Scientist, April 2019
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
Recent & highlighted publications:
Shteynberg, G., J.B. Hirsh, R.A. Bentley & J. Garthoff (2021). Shared worlds and shared minds: A theory of collective learning and a psychology of common knowledge. Psychological Review , in press.
Bentley, R.A., J. Borycz, S. Carrignon, D. J. Ruck, M.J. O'Brien (2021). Machine learning for rediscovering revolutionary ideas of the past. Adaptive Behavior, in press.
Bentley, R.A., B. Pradier, A.A. Kyaw, T.O. Pryce (2021) Kinship and migration in prehistoric Mainland Southeast Asia: An overview of isotopic evidence. Archaeological Research in Asia, in press.
O’Brien, M.J. & R.A. Bentley (2021). Genes, culture, and the human niche: An overview. Evolutionary Anthropology, in press.
O'Brien, M.J. & R.A. Bentley (2020). A long view of cumulative technological culture. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 43: e174.
Ruck, D.J., R.A. Bentley & D.J. Lawson (2020). Cultural prerequistes for socioeconomic development. Royal Society Open Science 7(2): 190725.
Ruck, D.J. L.J. Matthews,. T. Kyritsis, Q.D. Atkinson, R.A. Bentley (2020). The cultural foundations of modern democracies. Nature Human Behaviour, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0769-1.
Bentley, R.A., D.J. Ruck & H.N. Fouts (2020). U.S. obesity as delayed effect of excess sugar. Economics and Human Biology 36: article 100818.
Carrignon, S. R.A. Bentley & D.J. Ruck (2019). Modelling rapid online cultural transmission: evaluating neutral models on Twitter data with approximate Bayesian computation. Palgrave Communications 5, article 83.
Ruck, D.J., N.M. Rice, J. Borycz, and R.A. Bentley (2019) Internet Research Agency Twitter activity predicted 2016 U.S. election polls. First Monday, 1 July 2019.
Bentley, R.A., P. Ormerod, D.J. Ruck (2018) Recent origin and evolution of obesity-income correlation across the United States. Palgrave Communications 4: article 146.
Ruck, D.J., R.A. Bentley and D.J. Lawson (2018). Religious change preceded economic change in the 20th century. Science Advances 4(7): eaar8680.
Bentley, R.A., A. Willis, B. Pradier, A.A. Kyaw, T.T. Win, A.D. Brandon and T.O. Pryce (2018). Social differences in Neolithic/Bronze Age Myanmar. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 21: 32-37.
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).
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., 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.
Books:
Michael J. O'Brien, R. Alexander Bentley and William A. Brock (2019). The Importance of Small Decisions. M.I.T. Press.
R. Alexander Bentley and Michael J. O'Brien (2017) The Acceleration of Cultural Change: From Ancestors to Algorithms. (M.I.T. Press)
"An intelligent model for predictions on culture" - LSE Review of Books
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 37996