Human behavioral ecology (HBE) is an adaptationist approach to the study of behavior. Its primary goal is to understand how behavior varies as a function of local socioecological context. HBE relies on a hypothetico-deductive research strategy to test simple models using empirical data, often from small-scale societies. Research in HBE covers a wide range of topics but mainly focuses on behaviors that are most directly related to Darwinian fitness. As the field has grown, its focus has moved from simple tests of optimization models to more nuanced studies that incorporate proximate and ultimate mechanisms and that bring together data from multiple sites to assess cross-cultural variation in more fine-grained detail.