Scientific disciplines are characterized by cultures of practice that shape how research is conducted. The conventional research designs of studies by human behavioral ecologists entail both pros and cons. This chapter considers alternatives that would allow human behavioral ecologists to marshal the empirical evidence that is needed for convincing answers to long-standing debates. In particular, the chapter advocates for greater emphasis on long-term, individual-based field research. Data acquired via prospective panel studies can be used to examine the dynamic processes that unfold over long periods of time, including life span and intergenerational processes. Remedies are needed to the structural obstacles that limit the implementation of prospective panel studies, including logistical and funding constraints. The chapter also addresses the disadvantageous academic research culture that incentivizes scientists to pursue status and prestige instead of research objectives with greater long-term value. Methods to support longitudinal research are discussed, including approaches to data management and data analysis. The chapter concludes by highlighting opportunities for rising generations of human behavioral ecologists to reshape the culture of research practice in order to advance principled, ethical, and compelling approaches to the comparative study of human behavior.

An important adaptive problem for humans and other animals is the acquisition of food. To study foraging strategies, human behavioral ecologists use a number of optimization models, which generally assume that individuals aim to maximize the rate at which they acquire resources. For instance, the prey choice model and its variants highlight the resources that should either be pursued or ignored when they are encountered. The patch choice model and the marginal value theorem, respectively, examine which patches should be exploited by foragers and when they should switch from one patch to another. Foraging strategies are impacted by social considerations, too. The ideal free distribution considers the habitats that foragers should choose while considering the suitability of possible habitats as a function of the number of current occupants. Diverse case studies from ethnographic and archaeological research are discussed. The chapter also highlights opportunities for future studies, including research on the social dimensions of foraging strategies and the ways in which humans can modify environments to enhance foraging returns. There is also a clear need for additional research on the causes and consequences of individual-level variation in foraging ability.

Among the diversity of perspectives for studying the nexus of evolution and human behavior, human behavioral ecology (HBE) emerged as the study of the adaptive nature of behavior as a function of socioecological context. This volume explores the history and diversification of HBE, a field which has grown considerably in the decades since its emergence in the 1970s. At its core, the principles of HBE have remained a clear and cogent way to derive predictions about the adaptive function of behavior, even as the questions and methods of the discipline have evolved to be more interdisciplinary and more synergistic with other fields in the evolutionary social sciences. This introductory chapter covers core concepts, including methodological individualism, conditional strategies, and optimization. The chapter then provides an overview of the state of the field, including a summary of current research topics, areas, and methods. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the integral role that human behavioral ecology continues to play in deepening scholarly understandings of human behavior.