Rate My Professor Jacob Freeman

Jacob Freeman is Professor and Anthropology Program Director in the School of Social Sciences at Utah State University. He earned his PhD in Anthropology from Arizona State University in 2014. Prior to his full-time faculty position, he served as an Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at San Antonio from 2014 to 2015. Freeman joined Utah State University as Assistant Professor in 2014, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015, and advanced to full Professor in 2025. His career at USU includes leadership as Anthropology Program Director, overseeing the program within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Freeman's research examines the effects of diversity in species, institutions, and cognitive traits on the stability and transformation of human groups, with expertise in North American Archaeology, Anthropological Inquiry, cross-cultural approaches to diversity and change, and Southwest Archaeology. Key projects include the Cognitive Styles and Collective Action project, which investigates why some teams manage natural resources more effectively; the PEOPLE 3000 project, analyzing relationships between climate, population, and farming system diversity over the last 3,000 years; and the Territoriality on the Texas Coastal Plain project, exploring the development of property rights among prehistoric populations in Texas. His interests also encompass human ecology, collective action, theory of mind, social evolution, reorganization of economies and politics, social norms, and human population growth. Freeman has authored numerous publications in prestigious journals, including 'p3k14c, a synthetic global database of archaeological radiocarbon dates' (Scientific Data, 2022), 'Culture process and the interpretation of radiocarbon data' (Radiocarbon, 2018), 'Synchronization of energy consumption by human societies throughout the Holocene' (PNAS, 2018), 'Social and general intelligence improves collective action in a common pool resource system' (PNAS, 2020), 'Toward a theory of non-linear transitions from foraging to farming' (Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2015), 'The long-term expansion and recession of human populations' (PNAS, 2024), 'The global ecology of human population density and interpreting changes in paleo-population density' (Journal of Archaeological Science, 2020), and 'Hunter-Gatherer Population Expansion and Intensification: Malthusian and Boserupian Dynamics' (Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2024). These works contribute to understanding population dynamics, socio-ecological systems, and adaptive responses to environmental changes.