Rebecca E Cuddahee, Adjunct Assistant Professor

Contact Info:

Office Location:	01AA Biological Sciences Building
Office Phone:	(716) 417-9897
Email Address:

Office Hours:

By appointment

Mailing address:
Department of Evolutionary Anthropology
Box 90383 Duke University
Durham, NC 27708-0383

Education:

Ph.D.

SUNY University at Buffalo

2008

Specialties:

Functional Morphology

Research Interests: Paleoecology; Ecological Morphology; and Skeletal/Dental Responses of Mammals to Climate and Environmental Change

My recent research includes:

(1) Investigating the past environments of our distant African ancestors and their relatives, the hominins, and in developing hypotheses to frame and interpret their habitat and dietary adaptations.

(2) I also have broad interests in the relationship between masticatory morphology, ecology and dietary adaptations of both modern and fossil mammals, especially fossil pigs. In this context, I am interested in identifying functional craniodental characters most strongly correlated with diet and habitat preference, as well as assessing morphological changes against documented changes in both paleoclimate and paleoenvironment.

(3) Continuing to investigate mandibular and dental morphological changes in African pigs during the Plio-Pleistocene, their evolution and phylogeographic variation.

(4) The evolution of hypsodonty in ungulates and postcanine megadontia in hominins.

Keywords:

Comparative cranial and dental anatomy • Paleoecology • Ecological morphology and phylogeographic variation • Dietary adaptations in mammals

Curriculum Vitae

Recent Publications   (search)

1. Cuddahee RE, Book Review of Komar DA and Buikstra JE, Forensic Anthropology: Contemporary Theory and Practice, Paleoanthropology (2009), pp. 171-172
2. Cuddahee RE and Bobe R, Variability selection and Kolpochoerus heseloni (Artiodactyla, Suidae): a model for the dichotomous morphologies of Australopithecus afarensis, American Journal of Physical Anthropology Supplement, vol. 48 (2009), pp. 13
3. Cuddahee RE, Madden R, Churchill S, Bobe R., Non-dietary abrasives and the evolution of hominin megadonty, American Journal of Physical Anthropology (2009) (abstract accepted.)
4. Cuddahee RE, Madden RH, Bobe R, Churchill SE, All the Dirt on Megadontia: Earth Surface Processes in Hominin Evolution. Paper presented at the 2nd Annual Conference of the East African Association of Paleoanthropology and Paleoarchaeology, Arusha, Tanzania (2009)