Marcus Hamilton

I study theories of energy, information, and computation in complex human systems. My research focuses on the evolutionary diversification of human ecology over time and space, from hunter-gatherer societies to industrialized market economies. I am particularly interested in how humans compute adaptive solutions to the problem of extracting free energy from stochastic environments.  Methodologically, my research involves archaeological fieldwork, data analysis, theory building, and statistical modeling.

Marcus Hamilton is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and on the faculty of the UTSA School of Data Science. Prior to joining UTSA, he held postdoctoral fellowships in the Department of Biology at the University of New Mexico, the Santa Fe Institute, and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Missouri. He received a B.Sc. from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of New Mexico. In 2020, he was awarded the President’s Distinguished Research Achievement Award from UTSA.