Sean S. Downey

2.4k total citations · 1 hit paper
30 papers, 1.4k citations indexed

About

Sean S. Downey is a scholar working on Paleontology, Sociology and Political Science and Global and Planetary Change. According to data from OpenAlex, Sean S. Downey has authored 30 papers receiving a total of 1.4k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 9 papers in Paleontology, 7 papers in Sociology and Political Science and 7 papers in Global and Planetary Change. Recurrent topics in Sean S. Downey's work include Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (9 papers), Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (6 papers) and Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (5 papers). Sean S. Downey is often cited by papers focused on Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (9 papers), Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (6 papers) and Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (5 papers). Sean S. Downey collaborates with scholars based in United States, United Kingdom and Indonesia. Sean S. Downey's co-authors include Stephen Shennan, Kevan Edinborough, Tim Kerig, Katie Manning, Sue Colledge, Mark Thomas, Adrian Timpson, Murray P. Cox, J. Stephen Lansing and Herawati Sudoyo and has published in prestigious journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Communications and PLoS ONE.

In The Last Decade

Sean S. Downey

27 papers receiving 1.3k citations

Hit Papers

1 papers align trajectories

What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

Regional population collapse followed initial agriculture booms in mid-Holocene Europe

2013 522 citations Stephen Shennan, Sean S. Downey et al. Nature Communications profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name	h						Papers	Cites
Sean S. Downey United States	17	607	404	307	259	241	30	1.4k
Adrian Timpson United Kingdom	15	859 1.4×	589 1.5×	447 1.5×	236 0.9×	212 0.9×	24	1.5k
R. Kyle Bocinsky United States	18	533 0.9×	242 0.6×	241 0.8×	115 0.4×	187 0.8×	38	1.1k
Detlef Gronenborn Germany	18	806 1.3×	453 1.1×	191 0.6×	455 1.8×	129 0.5×	44	1.5k
James Conolly Canada	23	1.0k 1.7×	513 1.3×	194 0.6×	145 0.6×	235 1.0×	55	1.8k
Graeme Barker United Kingdom	21	829 1.4×	745 1.8×	188 0.6×	189 0.7×	264 1.1×	44	1.7k
Frédérik Saltré Australia	20	336 0.6×	349 0.9×	324 1.1×	152 0.6×	132 0.5×	53	1.4k
Katie Manning United Kingdom	15	932 1.5×	687 1.7×	488 1.6×	126 0.5×	226 0.9×	28	1.5k
James H. Barrett United Kingdom	27	964 1.6×	344 0.9×	253 0.8×	326 1.3×	289 1.2×	70	2.1k
Aubrey Cannon Canada	21	736 1.2×	474 1.2×	103 0.3×	109 0.4×	171 0.7×	39	1.3k
Katharina Neumann Germany	25	662 1.1×	574 1.4×	645 2.1×	56 0.2×	295 1.2×	79	2.1k

Countries citing papers authored by Sean S. Downey

Since Specialization

Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Sean S. Downey's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Sean S. Downey with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Sean S. Downey more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Sean S. Downey

Since Specialization

Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Sean S. Downey. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Sean S. Downey. The network helps show where Sean S. Downey may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Sean S. Downey

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Sean S. Downey. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Sean S. Downey based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Sean S. Downey. Sean S. Downey is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

Sort: Min cites: Since: Top N: Style:

20 of 20 papers shown

Downey, Sean S., et al.. (2025). A complex adaptive systems model of labour reciprocity and normative reasoning in swidden agriculture. Royal Society Open Science. 12(5). 242197–242197. 1 indexed citations

Downey, Sean S. & Martin Russell. (2024). A DECISION TREE APPROACH TO TASK-INDEPENDENT SPEECH RECOGNITION.

Downey, Sean S., et al.. (2023). An intermediate level of disturbance with customary agricultural practices increases species diversity in Maya community forests in Belize. Communications Earth & Environment. 4(1). 7 indexed citations

Lansing, J. Stephen, Sean S. Downey, Peter K. Norquest, et al.. (2022). Deep ancestry of collapsing networks of nomadic hunter–gatherers in Borneo. Evolutionary Human Sciences. 4. e9–e9. 3 indexed citations

James, Bruce R., et al.. (2021). Soils, landscapes, and cultural concepts of favor and disfavor within complex adaptive systems and ResourceCultures: human-land interactions during the Holocene. Ecology and Society. 26(1). 6 indexed citations

Downey, Sean S., et al.. (2018). Archaeopedological analysis of colluvial deposits in favourable and unfavourable areas: reconstruction of land use dynamics in SW Germany. Royal Society Open Science. 5(5). 171624–171624. 26 indexed citations

Lansing, J. Stephen, Elsa G. Guillot, Stefan Thurner, et al.. (2017). Kinship structures create persistent channels for language transmission. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114(49). 12910–12915. 17 indexed citations

Downey, Sean S., et al.. (2017). Archaeopedology and chronostratigraphy of colluvial deposits as a proxy for regional land use history (Baar, southwest Germany). CATENA. 155. 93–113. 36 indexed citations

Hudjashov, Georgi, Tatiana M. Karafet, Daniel J. Lawson, et al.. (2017). Complex Patterns of Admixture across the Indonesian Archipelago. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 34(10). 2439–2452. 48 indexed citations

10.

Downey, Sean S., Randall Haas, & Stephen Shennan. (2016). European Neolithic societies showed early warning signals of population collapse. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113(35). 9751–9756. 67 indexed citations

11.

Downey, Sean S., Emmy Bocaege, Tim Kerig, Kevan Edinborough, & Stephen Shennan. (2014). The Neolithic Demographic Transition in Europe: Correlation with Juvenility Index Supports Interpretation of the Summed Calibrated Radiocarbon Date Probability Distribution (SCDPD) as a Valid Demographic Proxy. PLoS ONE. 9(8). e105730–e105730. 74 indexed citations

12.

Karafet, Tatiana M., Sean S. Downey, J. Stephen Lansing, et al.. (2014). Isolation, contact and social behavior shaped genetic diversity in West Timor. Journal of Human Genetics. 59(9). 494–503. 14 indexed citations

13.

Shennan, Stephen, Sean S. Downey, Adrian Timpson, et al.. (2013). Regional population collapse followed initial agriculture booms in mid-Holocene Europe. Nature Communications. 4(1). 2486–2486. 522 indexed citations breakdown →

14.

Karafet, Tatiana M., Brian Hallmark, Murray P. Cox, et al.. (2010). Major East-West Division Underlies Y Chromosome Stratification across Indonesia. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 27(8). 1833–1844. 119 indexed citations

15.

Downey, Sean S.. (2009). Resilient Networks and and the Historical Ecology of Q'eqchi' Maya Swidden Agriculture. Journal of Wrist Surgery. 3(1). 42–5. 4 indexed citations

16.

Lansing, J. Stephen, et al.. (2009). A robust budding model of Balinese water temple networks. World Archaeology. 41(1). 112–133. 25 indexed citations

17.

Downey, Sean S., Brian Hallmark, Murray P. Cox, Peter K. Norquest, & J. Stephen Lansing. (2008). Computational Feature-Sensitive Reconstruction of Language Relationships: Developing the ALINE Distance for Comparative Historical Linguistic Reconstruction. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics. 15(4). 340–369. 26 indexed citations

18.

Lansing, J. Stephen, Murray P. Cox, Sean S. Downey, et al.. (2007). Coevolution of languages and genes on the island of Sumba, eastern Indonesia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104(41). 16022–16026. 64 indexed citations

19.

Downey, Sean S.. (2005). EXPERIMENTING WITH "LAD CULTURE": A SIMULATION BASED ON WILLIS' LEARNING TO LABOR. eScholarship (California Digital Library). 130(1). 37–55. 1 indexed citations

20.

Russell, Martin, et al.. (1990). Triphone clustering in the ARM system. NASA STI/Recon Technical Report N. 90. 27952. 2 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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