About

Agustín Fuentes is a Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University and serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California-Berkeley, earned in 1994, and has academic affiliations with the Program in Cognitive Science, Brazil LAB, the Program in Latin American Studies, and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. His research focuses on the biocultural aspects of human evolution, exploring the entanglement of biological systems with social and cultural lives of humans, ancestors, and other animals with whom humanity shares close relations. Trained in zoology and anthropology, Fuentes began his scholarly career studying the behavior and ecology of humans and primates, with early work involving behavioral ecology, ethnography, and comparative theories in human evolution and biology. Over time, his focus expanded to include human biological variation, race/racism, sex/gender, multispecies relationships, and the construction of mutual ecologies. His current projects involve developing biocultural models of human evolution, examining cooperation, creativity, and semiosis, and investigating multispecies anthropologies, evolutionary theory, race, racism, and gender/sex. Fuentes has contributed significantly to understanding human biological and cultural evolution, emphasizing the interconnectedness of biological and social factors in shaping human history and diversity.

Research topics

• History
• Computer Science
• Biology
• Sociology
• Geography
• Economics
• Evolutionary biology
• Genealogy
• Psychology
• Environmental science
• Medicine
• Demography
• Data science
• Natural resource economics
• Paleontology
• Ecology
• Environmental resource management
• Environmental health

Selected publications

• This is not only about a ~60 year old conference and book: A Commentary on “The meanings and dividends of man the hunter”

  Evolution and Human Behavior · 2026-05-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Doing Science With Our Grandmother's <scp>WISDOM</scp> : A Worldview Integrating Sociality, Diversity, and Observant Meaning‐Making

  American Journal of Human Biology · 2025-09-30

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The contemporary moment is defined and marred by geopolitical sorrow-with genocide in Gaza, and wars in Sudan and Ukraine to mention some-devastating the lives of millions of people. The resulting geopolitical, ecological, communal, and personal devastation will last for generations in concrete and substantive ways, as the legacy of war and genocide stays with those who survive. In this perspective, we highlight an example of this by discussing new lines of evidence for intergenerational epigenetic transmission of sustained, war-related trauma. Here we articulate a novel frame labeled WISDOM: a Worldview Integrating Sociality, Diversity, and Observant Meaning-making. This framing aims to facilitate rigorous science in the relatively uncharted domains of biocultural approaches to intergenerational trauma, survival, and resilience. WISDOM is a perspective with practical components, focused primarily on trauma but applicable to other foci at the confluence of biological and social sciences.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evidence for deliberate burial of the dead by Homo naledi

  eLife · 2025-03-28 · 4 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract In this study we describe new results of excavations in the Dinaledi Subsystem of the Rising Star cave system, South Africa. In two areas within the Hill Antechamber and the Dinaledi Chamber this work uncovered concentrations of abundant Homo naledi fossils including articulated, matrix-supported skeletal regions consistent with rapid covering by sediment prior to the decomposition of soft tissue. We additionally re-examine the spatial positioning of skeletal material and associated sediments within the Puzzle Box area, from which abundant H. naledi remains representing a minimum of six individuals were recovered in 2013 and 2014. Multiple lines of evidence exclude the hypothesis that skeletal remains from these three areas come from bodies that decomposed on the floor of the chamber or within a shallow depression prior to burial by sediments. The spatial positioning of skeletal material, the topography of the subsystem, and observations on sediments within and surrounding features exclude the hypothesis that rapid burial by sediment was a result of gravity-driven slumping or spontaneous movement of sediments. We present a minimal hypothesis of hominin cultural burial and test the evidence from all three areas, finding that this hypothesis is most compatible with the pattern of evidence. These results suggest that mortuary behavior including cultural burial was part of the repertoire of Homo naledi.

  PublisherDOI

• Meaning-making behavior in a small-brained hominin, Homo naledi, from the late Pleistocene: contexts and evolutionary implications

  eLife · 2025-06-23

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Explorations in the Dinaledi Subsystem of the Rising Star cave system have yielded some of the earliest evidence of a mortuary practice in hominins. Because the evidence is attributable to the small-brained Homo naledi, these analyses call into question several assumptions about behavioral and cognitive evolution in Pleistocene hominins. The evidence from the Dinaledi Subsystem, and at other locations across the Rising Star cave system may widen the phylogenetic breadth of mortuary, and possibly funerary, behaviors. These discoveries may also associate the creation of meaning making and increased behavioral complexity with a small-brained hominin species, challenging certain assertions about the role of encephalization and cognition in hominin and human evolution. We suggest that the hominin socio-cognitive niche is more diverse than previously thought. If true, technological, meaning-making activities, and cognitive advances in human evolution are not associated solely with the evolution of larger brained members of the genus Homo.

  PublisherDOI

• Author response: Evidence for deliberate burial of the dead by Homo naledi

  2025-09-01

  peer-reviewOpen access

  Remains of the extinct hominin species Homo naledi were interred by members of their own species, the first time that burial has been documented in populations other than modern humans and Neanderthals.

  PublisherDOI

• Meaning-making behavior in a small-brained hominin, Homo naledi, from the late Pleistocene: contexts and evolutionary implications

  eLife · 2025-09-04

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Explorations in the Dinaledi Subsystem of the Rising Star cave system have yielded some of the earliest evidence of a mortuary practice in hominins. Because the evidence is attributable to the small-brained Homo naledi , these analyses call into question several assumptions about behavioral and cognitive evolution in Pleistocene hominins. The evidence from the Dinaledi Subsystem, and at other locations across the Rising Star cave system may widen the phylogenetic breadth of mortuary, and possibly funerary, behaviors. These discoveries may also associate the creation of meaning-making and increased behavioral complexity with a small-brained hominin species, challenging certain assertions about the role of encephalization and cognition in hominin and human evolution. We suggest that the hominin socio-cognitive niche is more diverse than previously thought. If true, technological, meaning-making activities, and cognitive advances in human evolution are not associated solely with the evolution of larger-brained members of the genus Homo .Evidence for complex behaviors associated with a small-brained hominin suggests that large brains are not solely responsible for the manifestation of human-like behavioral complexity.

  PublisherDOI

• Author response: Meaning-making behavior in a small-brained hominin, Homo naledi, from the late Pleistocene: contexts and evolutionary implications

  2025-06-23

  peer-reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Explorations in the Dinaledi Subsystem of the Rising Star cave system have yielded some of the earliest evidence of a mortuary practice in hominins. Because the evidence is attributable to the small-brained Homo naledi, these analyses call into question several assumptions about behavioral and cognitive evolution in Pleistocene hominins. The evidence from the Dinaledi Subsystem, and at other locations across the Rising Star cave system may widen the phylogenetic breadth of mortuary, and possibly funerary, behaviors. These discoveries may also associate the creation of meaning making and increased behavioral complexity with a small-brained hominin species, challenging certain assertions about the role of encephalization and cognition in hominin and human evolution. We suggest that the hominin socio-cognitive niche is more diverse than previously thought. If true, technological, meaning-making activities, and cognitive advances in human evolution are not associated solely with the evolution of larger brained members of the genus Homo.Evidence for complex behaviors associated with a small-brained hominin suggest that large brains are not solely responsible for the manifestation of human-like behavioral complexity.

  PublisherDOI

• An initial report of c241,000 to 335,000 Year old Rock Engravings and their relation to Homo naledi in the Rising Star cave system, South Africa

  eLife · 2025-06-09

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract The production of painted, etched or engraved designs on cave walls or other surfaces is recognized as a major cognitive step in human evolution. Such intentional designs, which are widely interpreted as signifying, recording, and transmitting information in a durable manner were once considered exclusive to Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens. Here we present observations of what appear to be engraved abstract patterns and shapes within the Dinaledi Subsystem of the Rising Star cave system in South Africa, incised into the dolomitic limestone walls of the cave. The markings described here are found on a pillar in the Hill Antechamber that extends into the natural fissure corridor that links the two chambers and we associate them with H. naledi. They include deeply impressed lines, cross-hatchings, percussion marks, and other geometric shapes on flat wall surfaces and in and around existing cracks and grooves in the dolomitic limestone walls, found in one specific location of the Dinaledi Subsystem. Remains of multiple Homo naledi are found in this part of the cave system and evidence mortuary behaviour appears in both the Dinaledi Chamber and adjacent Hill Antechamber dated to between 241 and 335 ka (Dirks et al., 2017; Robbins et al., 2021, Berger et al, 2025).

  PublisherDOI

• Human-macaque Co-construction of Behaviours: Sharing Spaces, Sharing Food, Sharing Lives

  International Journal of Primatology · 2025-11-08 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Humans and other-than-human-animals (animals) share spaces, food, and lives. This gives rise to possibilities of interspecific learning, social facilitation and interspecific communication, and the potential for location- and group-specific behaviors in both groups. Most macaque species are synanthropes (i.e., species who live near humans and use human resources) and have shared habitats with humans for millennia. In adjusting to the same habitats and resources, ecological niches might be co-created by humans and macaques wherein novel socially learned behaviors emerge and location-specific cultures arise. Socially learned behaviors can develop in macaques without human presence, or novel behaviors may emerge due to facilitation from the dynamic of the human-macaque interface as an outcome of direct or indirect interactions between humans and macaques. We propose that direct or indirect interactions between humans and macaques can be envisioned as human-macaque co-constructed behavior and, if embedded in the populations of both humans and macaques, could become co-culture. We use three case studies to exemplify the spectrum of this co-construction process and outline the different levels of co-constructed behaviors and explain how they can emerge in shared human-macaque interfaces. Whereas other primate social traditions, often referred to as “primate cultures,” are considered to be threatened in anthropogenic landscapes (the “disturbance hypothesis”), co-constructed behaviors between humans and macaques may endure in human-influenced and rapidly changing environments and even proliferate. This dynamic has implications for primate conservation as co-constructed behaviors could facilitate coexistence. To better assess existing behavioral traditions (or cultures) in primates and to better understand their emergence and maintenance, researchers will need to examine in greater depth the possibility that the co-creation and co-shaping of niches and behavioral ecologies may be a key characteristic of some human-primate interfaces.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Not so binary or generalizable: Brain sex differences with artificial neural networks

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-01-02 · 2 citations

  letterOpen access

  No abstract

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Lee R. Berger

  University of the Witwatersrand

  52 shared

• Lisa Jones‐Engel

  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

  41 shared

• John Hawks

  University of the Witwatersrand

  34 shared

• Gregory Engel

  Sequoia Hospital

  31 shared

• Michael A. Schillaci

  The Scarborough Hospital

  25 shared

• Mathabela Tsikoane

  University of the Witwatersrand

  23 shared

• Keneiloe Molopyane

  University of the Witwatersrand

  23 shared

• Dirk van Rooyen

  University of the Witwatersrand

  23 shared

Awards & honors

• High Meadows Environmental Institute Biodiversity Grand Chal…
• Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation (2023)
• High Meadows Environmental Institute Grand Water Challenge,…
• Princeton Catalysis Initiative, Co‐principal investigator (2…
• John Templeton Foundation, Principal investigator (2022)