Jane Beckman Lancaster

Laura Jane Beckman Lancaster (December 20, 1935 – August 3, 2025) was an American anthropologist. She was named a distinguished professor at the University of New Mexico in 2012 and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wellesley College in 1958, where she graduated cum laude. Lancaster received a PhD degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967, with the dissertation "Primate Communication Systems and the Emergence of Human Language". At Berkeley, Lancaster was a student of Sherwood Washburn. Before UNM, she held positions at Berkeley from 1964 until 1969, Rutgers University from 1969 until 1972, the University of New Orleans from 1973 until 1977, and the University of Oklahoma from 1977 until 1985. From 1984 until 1985, she was acting Chair of the University of Oklahoma Department of Anthropology. Lancaster was associate editor of the American Journal of Primatology from 1980 until 1986 and consulting editor from 1986 until 2003. In 2011, she became the editor of the series SpringerBriefs in Human Behavior and Biology, published by Springer.

Her notable doctoral students include Barbara J. King. Her other memberships in associations include the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the evolutionary anthropology section of the American Anthropological Association (named the Evolutionary Anthropology Society) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science – the two associations where she was a fellow, the American Society of Primatologists, the Human Biology Council, the International Primatological Society, the Society for the Study of Social Biology, and the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.

Selected publications Lancaster, Jane B.; Hamburg, B. (eds.) (2008). School-Age Pregnancy and Parenthood: Biosocial Perspectives. 2. ed. Transaction Publishers. Piscataway, New Jersey.

Anderson, G.; Kaplan, H.; Lancaster, J. (2007). Confidence of paternity, divorce, and investment in children by Albuquerque men. Evolution and Human Behavior. 28:1–10.

Kramer, Karen L.; Lancaster, Jane B. (2010). Motherhood in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Annals of Human Biology.

Kaplan, Hillard; Lancaster, Jane B. Chimpanzee and Human Intelligence: Life history, diet and the mind. In: Gangestad, Steven W.; Simpson, Jeffry A. (eds.) (2007). The Evolution of the Mind: Fundamental Questions and Controversies. New York, Guilford Press. pp. 111–120.

Kaplan, Hillard S.; Gurven, Michael; Lancaster, Jane B. Brain Evolution and the Human Adaptive Complex. In: Gangestad, Steven W.; Simpson, Jeffry A. (eds.) (2007). The Evolution of the Mind: Fundamental Questions and Controversies. New York, Guilford Press. pp. 269–279.

Kaplan, S.; Gangestad, M.; Gurven, M.; Lancaster, J.; Mueller, T.; Robson, A. The Evolution of Diet, Brain and Life History among Primates and Humans. In: Roebroeks, W. (ed.) (2007). Guts and brains: An Integrative Approach to the Hominin Record. Leiden: Leiden University Press. pp. 47–90.

Kaplan, Hillard S.; Lancaster, Jane B. (2009). Ellison, T.; Gray, P. G. (eds.). The Endocrinology of the Human Adaptive Complex. Endocrinology of Social Relationships. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 95–119.

Kaplan, H. S., Hill, K.; Lancaster, J. B.; Hurtado, A. M. (2000). A Theory of Human Life History Evolution: Diet, Intelligence, and Longevity. Evolutionary Anthropology. 9(4):156–185. Reprinted in: Broughton, J. M.; Cannon, M. D. (eds.) (2009). Evolutionary Ecology and Archaeology: Applications to Problems in Human Evolution and Prehistory. University of Utah Press. pp. 48–81.

Kaplan, H; Lancaster, J. B. Embodied Capital and Human Evolution. In: Muehlenbein, M. (ed.) (2010). Human Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.