Quentin Atkinson

Phone: +64 9 923 4316
Email: q.atkinson@auckland.ac.nz
Room: HSB 523
Office hours: Please email for an appointment
Website: www.fos.auckland.ac.nz/~quentinatkinson/

Quentin has recently returned to the University of Auckland, having completed his PhD thesis in the School of Psychology in 2006. Prior to his return, he spent 3 years at the University of Oxford as a Research Fellow in the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology. He has also done post-doctoral work in the school for the Study of Religion at the University of Aarhus, Denmark and with Professor Mark Pagel in the Zoology Department at the University of Reading, UK.

Quentin's research interests covers a range of areas, centred on human evolution and cooperation. This includes the evolution of language, religion, large-scale cooperation and common pool resources, and the human expansion from Africa. He is also a keen environmentalist and in 2008 published an edited volume with Dr Niki Harré on how New Zealanders can tackle climate change.

• 2007-2010 - Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK
• 2006-2007 – Mark Pagel’s Evolutionary Biology Group, Department of Zoology, University of Reading, UK
• 2003-2006 – Russell Gray’s Lab, School of Psychology, University of Auckland, NZ

• Bouckaert, R., Lemey, P., Dunn, M., Greenhill, S. J., Alekseyenko, A. V., Drummond, A. J., Gray, R. D., Suchard, M. A., & Atkinson, Q. D. (2012). Mapping the origins and expansion of the Indo-European language family. Science, 337:957-960. DOI: 10.1126/science.337.6097.989-b
• Shultz, S., Opie, C. & Atkinson, Q. D. (2011). Stepwise evolution of stable sociality in primates. Nature, 479:219-222.
• Bourrat, P., Atkinson, Q. D., and Dunbar, R. (2011). Supernatural punishment and individual social compliance across cultures. Religion, Brain and Behavior. 1(2), 119-134.
• Atkinson, Q. D. (2011). Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa. Science, 332: 346-9.
• Atkinson, Q. D . & Bourrat, P. (2011). Beliefs about God, the afterlife and morality support the role of supernatural policing in human cooperation. Evolution and Human Behavior, 32:40-49..
• Atkinson, Q. D. Gray, R.D. and Drummond, A. J. (2009). Bayesian coalescent inference of major human mtDNA haplogroup expansions in Africa. Proc. Roy. Soc. Lon. B. 276: 367-373.
• Atkinson, Q. D., Meade, A. M., Venditti, C., Greenhill, S. J. and Pagel, M. (2008). Languages evolve in punctuational bursts. Science, 319: 588.
• Pagel, M., Atkinson, Q. D. and Meade, A. (2007). Frequency of word-use predicts rates of lexical evolution throughout Indo-European history. Nature, 449: 717-20.
• Gray, R. D. and Atkinson, Q. D. (2003). Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin. Nature, 426: 435-9.

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