Douglas Bird

Professional Bio

Dr. Bird is Professor of Anthropology, with broad interests in how social and ecological factors interact to influence patterns of resource use and their archaeological expressions. He focuses especially on questions about livelihood decisions and habitats, exploring the dynamics of human subsistence practices, their role in ecosystem function, and their archaeological implications in Australia and Western North America. He has worked closely with Martu Aboriginal communities in Australia’s Western Desert for over 25 years. 

Selected Publications

• Bird, D.W. and Bliege Bird, R., in collaboration with Nyalangka N. Taylor and Desmond Taylor (2025). Martu Ngurrara: Aboriginal Homelands and Economy in Australia’s Western Desert. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
• Morin, E., Bird, D.W., Bliege Bird, R., and Winterhalder, B. (2024). Why do humans hunt cooperatively? Ethnohistoric data reveal the contexts, advantages and evolutionary importance of communal hunting. Current Anthropology, 65(5), 876-921.
• Bliege Bird, R., Bird, D.W., McGuire, C., Greenwood, L., Taylor, D., Williams, T.M., Martine, C.T., Veth, P.M. (2024). Seed dispersal by Martu peoples promotes the distribution of native plants in arid Australia. Nature Communications, 15(1), 6019.
• Morin, E., Bird, D.W., Winterhalder, B., and Bliege Bird, R. (2022). Deconstructing hunting returns: Can we reconstruct and predict payoffs from pursuing prey? Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 29, 561–623.
• Bliege Bird, R., and Bird, D.W. (2021). Climate, landscape diversity, and food sovereignty in arid Australia: The firestick farming hypothesis. American Journal of Human Biology, 33(4), e23527.
• Bliege Bird, R., McGuire, C., Bird, D.W., Price, M.H., Zeanah, D.W., and Nimmo, D.G. (2020) Fire mosaics and habitat choice in nomadic foragers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 117, 12904-12914.
• Bird, D.W., R. Bliege Bird, B.F. Codding, and D.W. Zeanah (2019). Variability in the organization and size of hunter-gatherer groups: foragers do not live in small-scale societies. Journal of Human Evolution, 131, 96-108.
• Bliege Bird, R., D.W. Bird, L. Fernandez, N. Taylor, W. Taylor, and D. Nimmo (2018). Aboriginal burning promotes fine-scale pyrodiversity and native predators in Australia’s Western Desert. Biological Conservation, 219, 110-118.
• Zeanah, D.W., B.F. Codding, R. Bliege Bird, and D.W. Bird (2017). Mosaics of fire and water: the co-emergence of anthropogenic landscapes and intensive seed exploitation in the Australian arid zone. Australian Archaeology, 83, 2-10.
• Bird, D.W. and R. Bliege Bird (2017). Signaling theory and durable symbolic expression. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art DOI: 10.1093/ oxfordhb/ 9780190607357.013.39.
• Bird, D.W., R. Bliege Bird, Nyalangka Taylor, B.F. Codding (2016). A landscape architecture of fire: cultural and ecological emergence in Australia’s Western Desert. Current Anthropology, 57(S13), S65-S79.
• Bird, D.W., R. Bliege Bird, B.F. Codding (2016). Pyrodiversity and the anthropocene: the role of fire in the broad spectrum revolution. Evolutionary Anthropology, 25, 105-116.