selected publications
Bird, D.W. and J.F. O’Connell (in press). Human behavioral ecology. In Archaeological Theory Today, 2nd Edition, I. Hodder (ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bliege Bird, R., B. Scelza, D.W. Bird and E.A. Smith (2011) The hierarchy of virtue: mutualism, altruism, and signaling in Martu women's cooperative hunting. Evolution and Human Behavior, doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2011.05.007. pdf
Codding, B.F., D.W. Bird and T.L. Jones (in press). A land of work: foraging behavior and ecology. In California: Contemporary Issues in the Archaeology of a Goodly Llande, Edited by T.L. Jones and J.E. Perry
Codding, B.F., R. Bliege Bird, D.W. Bird (2011). Provisioning offspring and others: risk-energy trade-offs and gender differences in hunter-gatherer foraging strategies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 278:2502-2509. pdf
Bird, D.W. and R. Bliege Bird (2010). Competing to be leaderless: food sharing and magnanimity among Martu Aborigines. In The Evolution Of Leadership: Transitions In Decision Making From Small-Scale To Middle-Range Societies, J. Kanter, K. Vahn and J. Earkins (eds), pp. 21-49. Santa Fe: SAR Press. .pdf
Codding, B.F., D.W. Bird, R. Bliege Bird (2010). Interpreting abundance indices: some zooarchaeological implications of Martu foraging. Journal of Archaeological Science (in press). .pdf
Bird, D.W. (2009). The inherent value of foraging. Arena Magazine 98:30-33. link
Bird, D.W., R. Bliege Bird, B.F. Codding (2009). In pursuit of mobile prey: Martu hunting strategies and archaeofaunal interpretation. American Antiquity 74:3-29. .pdf
Bliege Bird, R., B.F. Codding, D.W. Bird (2009). What explains differences in men’s and women’s production? Determinants of gendered foraging inequalities among Martu. Human Nature 20(2):105-129. .pdf
Bliege Bird, R., D.W. Bird, B.F. Codding, C.H. Parker, J. Holland Jones (2008). The “fire stick farming” hypothesis: Australian Aboriginal foraging strategies, biodiversity and anthropogenic fire mosaics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 105: 1479-14801. .pdf
Bliege Bird, R. and D.W. Bird (2008). Why women hunt: risk and contemporary foraging in a Western Desert Aboriginal community. Current Anthropology 49:655-693. .pdf
Bird, D.W. and B.F. Codding (2008). Human behavioral ecology and the use of ancient landscapes. In Handbook of Landscape Archaeology, B. David and J. Thomas (eds), pp. 396-408. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Bird, D.W. and J.F. O’Connell (2006). Human behavioral ecology and archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research, 14:143-188. .pdf
Bird, D.W., R. Bliege Bird, C.H. Parker (2005). Aboriginal burning regimes and hunting strategies in Australia’s Western Desert. Human Ecology 33:443-464. .pdf
Bliege Bird, R. and D.W. Bird (2005). Human hunting seasonality. In Primate Seasonality: Studies of Living and Extinct Human and Nonhuman Primates, D. Brockman and C. van Shaik (eds.), pp. 243-266. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .pdf
Bird, D.W. and R. Bliege Bird (2005). Martu children’s hunting strategies in the Western Desert, Australia. In Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods: Evolutionary, Developmental & Cultural Perspectives, B.S. Hewlett and M.E. Lamb (eds), pp. 129-146. New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction. .pdf
Bird, D.W., R. Bliege Bird, and C. H. Parker (2004). Women who hunt with fire. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2004(1): 90-96.
Bird, D.W. and R. Bliege Bird (2004). Evolutionary and ecological understandings of the economics of desert societies. In Desert Peoples: Archaeological Perspectives, P.M. Veth, M. Smith, and P. Hiscock (eds), pp. 81-99. London: Blackwell Scientific.
Bird, D.W., R. Bliege Bird, and J.L. Richardson (2004). Meriam ethnoarchaeology: shellfishing and shellmiddens. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series 3(1): 183-197. .pdf
Carter, M., A. Barham, S. O’Connor, P. Veth, D.W. Bird, and R. Bliege Bird (2004). The Meriam Islands archaeological project: preliminary results of excavations on Mer and Dauar, eastern Torres Strait. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series 3(1): 164-182.
Carter, M, P. Veth, A. Barham, D.W. Bird, S. O'Connor, and R. Bird. (2004). Archaeology of the Murray Islands, Torres Strait: implications for a regional prehistory. In R. Davis (ed.) Woven Histories, Dancing Lives: Torres Strait Islander Identity, Culture and History, pp. 234-258. London: Australian Aboriginal Studies Press.
Bird, D.W., R. Bliege Bird, and C. H. Parker (2003). Women who hunt with fire: Aboriginal resource use and fire regimes in Australia's Western Desert. Arid Lands Newsletter 54: ISSN 1092-5481.
Smith, E.A., R. Bliege Bird, and D.W. Bird (2003). The benefits of costly signaling: Meriam turtle hunters and spearfishers. Behavioral Ecology 14:116-126. .pdf
Bird, D.W., J.L. Richardson, P.M. Veth, and A.J. Barham (2002). Explaining shellfish variability in middens on the Meriam Islands, Torres Strait Australia. Journal of Archaeological Science, 29:457-469. .pdf
Bird, D.W. and R. Bliege Bird (2002). Children on the reef: slow learning or strategic foraging? Human Nature, 13:269-298. .pdf
Bird, D.W. (2002). Human foraging strategies: human diet and food practices. In the Encyclopedia of Evolution, M. Pagel (ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bliege Bird, R. and D.W. Bird (2002). Constraints of knowing or constraints on growing? Fishing and collecting among the children of Mer. Human Nature, 13:239-268. .pdf
Bliege Bird, R., D.W. Bird, E.A. Smith, and G. Kushnick (2002). Risk and reciprocity in Meriam food sharing. Evolution and Human Behavior 23:297-321. .pdf
Bliege Bird, R., E.A. Smith, and D.W. Bird (2001). The hunting handicap: costly signaling in male foraging strategies. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 50:9-19. .pdf
Bird, D.W. and R. Bliege Bird (2000). The ethnoarchaeology of juvenile foraging: shellfishing strategies among Meriam children. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 19:461-476. .pdf
Bird, D.W. (1997). Behavioral ecology and the archaeological consequences of central place foraging among the Meriam. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 7:291-306. .pdf
Bird, D.W. and R. Bliege Bird (1997). Contemporary shellfish gathering strategies among the Meriam of the Torres Strait Islands, Australia: testing predictions of a central place foraging model. Journal of Archaeological Science 24:39-63.
Bird, D.W. and R. Bliege Bird (1997). The science of foragers: evaluating variability among hunter-gatherers. Antiquity 71:477-480.
Bliege Bird, R. and D.W. Bird (1997). Delayed reciprocity and tolerated theft: the behavioral ecology of food sharing strategies. Current Anthropology 38:49-78. .pdf
Bliege Bird, R., E.A. Smith, and D.W. Bird (1997). Quantitative ethnography and the study of human behavior. AnthroQuest 1997(4):1-5.
Bliege Bird, R., D.W. Bird, and J.M. Beaton (1995). Children and traditional subsistence activities on Mer (Murray Island), Torres Strait, Australia. Australian Aboriginal Studies 1995(1): 2-17.