CES 2026

The next Cultural Evolution Society Conference will be held from in 2026. More details to be announced.


Previous CES conferences:

The Cultural Evolution Society Conference 2024 was held 9-11th September hosted by the Durham Cultural Evolution Research Centre (DCERC),in Durham, United Kingdom. It was immediately followed by the CES Transformation Fund capstone conference on 12-13th September. Both were hybrid conferences with attendance in person or online.

More details can be found at the CES 2024 conference website, on Twitter/X @Durham_DCERC, and BlueSky @durhamdcerc.bsky.social.

Keynote speakers:

• Patricia Izar, Institute of Psychology, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil
• Kathleen Corriveau, Department of Psychology, Boston University
• Barry Hewlett, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University
• Kevin Lala, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, U.K.
• Nicole Wen, Psychology & the Centre for Culture and Evolution, Brunel University London

Local organising committee:
• Rob Barton • Ellie Donnelly • Emily Jeffries
• Rohan Kapitany • Jeremy Kendal • Rachel Kendal (chair)
• Sheina Lew-Levy • Bruce Rawlings • Eva Reindl
• Sally Street • Amanda Tan • Sarah Wright
Prizewinners:
Best Presentation with Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Focus Alexander Ishungisa National Institute for Medical Research, Mwanza & University of California, Santa Barbara
Best Presentations from Global South or Indigenous Presenters
Mercedes Okumura
Faiz Hashmi
University of Sao Paolo
University of Texas, Austin
Best Student Talk
Lucie Wolters
Harin Lee
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
International Max Planck Research School NeuroCom
Best Student Lightening Talk
Madeleine Ammar
Niccole Porras
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Best Student Poster
Emily Jeffries
Emile Bryon
Durham University
Utrecht University
Website:

http://ces2024.webspace.durham.ac.uk

Programme:

full programme

The Cultural Evolution Society Conference 2022 was held September 21-23rd 2022 and organised from Aarhus University, led by Felix Riede. It was a hybrid conference with attendance either in person or online.

Keynote speakers:

• Ruth Mace, Department of Anthropology, University College London
• Marcelo Cardillo, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Instituto Multidisciplinario de Historia y Ciencias Humanas, Buenos Aires
• Fiona Jordan, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Bristol University
• Michele Gelfand, Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford University

Organising committee:

• Luseadra Joy McKerracher
• Jesper Sørensen
• Niels Nørkjær Johannsen
• Benjamin Grant Purzycki
• Mette Løvschal
• Felix Riede
• Iza Romanowska
• Karsten Olsen

Prizewinners:
Pete Richerson Award for Best PhD (Finalist) Alba Motes Rodrigo University of Lausanne
Pete Richerson Award for Best PhD (Finalist) Mason Youngblood Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology
Pete Richerson Award for Best PhD (Winner) Manvir Singh Institute for Advanced Study, Toulouse
New Investigator award (Finalist) Patrick Savage Keio University
New Investigator award (Finalist) Damian Blasi Harvard University
New Investigator award (Winner) Nicole Wen Brunel University, London
Website:

https://conferences.au.dk/ces2022/

Programme:

full programme [pdf download]

Due to the Covid pandemic, CES2021 was hosted online from June 9-11, 2021 by a team based in Sapporo, Japan.

Approximately 180 researchers from East Asia, Oceania, Middle East, Europe, North and South America gave presentations on their latest research advancing the evolutionary understanding of human and nonhuman animal culture. In total, approximately 300 people registered to attend CES2021.

Organisers:

Honorary Conference Organizer: Kenichi Aoki (Meiji University)

Chair: Masanori Takezawa (Hokkaido University)

Scientific Committee:

  • Kenichi Aoki (Meiji University)

  • Yasuo Ihara (the University of Tokyo)

  • Hiromi Matsumae (Tokai University)

  • Naoko Matsumoto (Okayama University)

  • Masako Myowa (Kyoto University)

  • Hisashi Nakao (Nanzan University)

  • Patrick E. Savage (Keio University)

Local Committee:

  • Yutaka Horita (Teikyo University)

  • Masanori Takezawa (Hokkaido University)

  • Ayaka Takimoto (Hokkaido University)

  • Kohei Tamura (Tohoku University)

Website:

https://www.chain.hokudai.ac.jp/CES2020/

Sponsors:
Keynote speakers:
  • Heidi Colleran (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

  • Marcus Feldman (Stanford University)

  • Joseph Henrich (Harvard University)

  • Kazuo Okanoya (University of Tokyo)

  • Brigitte Pakendorf (CNRS)

Prize winners:

Student presentations:

  • Taylor Hersh (Dalhousie University): Stability and evolution in sperm whale cultural dialects

  • Riana Minocher (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology): An evolutionary demographic decomposition of Spanish-speaking among the indigenous Tsimane of Bolivia

Local student presentations:

  • Kenji Itao (University of Tokyo): Evolution of kinship structures driven by marriage tie and competition

  • Yuta Kido (Hokkaido University): The coevolution of norm-internalization and frequency dependent preferences through cultural group selection

Presentations from Global South

  • Patrícia Izar (University of São Paulo): Using tools influences the association networks of bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus)

  • Eduardo Ottoni (University of São Paulo): Tool use generalization and behavioral traditions in tufted capuchin monkeys (Sapajus sp)

Presentations from Global South students

  • Luíza Gonzalez Ferreira (University of São Paulo): Early vocal development of bearded capuchin monkeys

  • Iatan Ladeia (University of São Paulo): Biases on social learning: the effect of model’s competence on children’s overimitation

Programme / abstracts:

Over 300 people attended CES2018 which was held at Arizona State University in Tempe on October 22-24, 2018.

Researchers at the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change were the local organizing committee.

Organisers:

Local organisers:

  • Rob Boyd, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ, USA

  • Sarah Mathew, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ, USA

  • Tom Morgan, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ, USA

  • Charles Perreault, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ, USA

External organising committee members:

  • Lucy Aplin, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany

  • Vanessa Ferdinand, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA

  • Cristina Moya, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, USA

  • Michael Muthukrishna, Dept of Psychology, London School of Economics, London, UK

  • Paul Smaldino, Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, Merced, USA

  • Masanori Takezawa, Department of Behavioral Science, Hokkaido University, Japan

Website:

https://na.eventscloud.com/ehome/ces18/659030/

Sponsors:
Keynote speakers:
  • Lucy Aplin, Max Planck for Ornithology, Radolfzell

  • Alison Gopnik, UC Berkeley

  • Katie Manning, King’s College London

  • Nathan Nunn, Harvard University

Programme / abstracts:

The Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History organised and hosted our first international conference in Jena, Germany on 13th-15th September 2017. Nearly 300 cultural evolution researchers from 40 countries gathered at this historic meeting to meet each other and share their discoveries.

Organisers:

Local organisers:

  • Olivier Morin

  • Russell Gray

Organising committee:

  • Andrew Whiten

  • Fiona Jordan

  • Joe Brewer

  • Michele Gelfand

  • Michelle Kline

Keynote speakers:
  • Christine Caldwell (University of Stirling)

  • Miriam Haidle (Tübingen University)

  • Cecilia Heyes (University of Oxford)

  • Peter Richerson (University of California)

Sponsors:
Prize winners:

Early career showcase talks:

  • Mathieu Charbonneau

  • Patrick Kavanagh

  • Aiyana Willard

Student showcase talks:

  • Helena Miton

  • Karsten Olsen

  • Manvir Singh

Programme:
single image

The iconic poster from the inaugural CES conference in Jena in 2017