During her graduate studies she worked on chromosome analysis, comparing chimpanzee and human chromosomes. Anne has undertaken primate field researchinMorocco, Gibraltar, Texas, Borneo and Africa. These two types of research combine interests in the physical development of humans from their primate ancestors, and the behavioral patterns of primates which are similar to those found among humans. However, her approach to physical anthropology is very wide-ranging and she has presented papers on witchcraft, dietary influences on behaviour, the role of children in evolution, and child abuse in primates, as well as on her major focus of primate communication.
She is also interested in the use of film in research and teaching, has prepared video tapes for use in her classes and is analyzing film taken during her field research. Her current research concerns the interactions of adults and infants in the socializing process of Macaca fascicularis, the crab-eating macaqueofIndonesia.
Anne began teaching full-time at the University of Waterloo in the Department of Anthropology in 1982, and spent several years as the Chair or Head of Anthropology after 1993. Anne also held a series of positions at the University of Alberta, the University of Victoria and the University of Toronto. She retired from teaching in 2009.
Zeller, Anne (1 January 1980). "Primate facial gestures: A study of communication". Paper in Linguistics. 13 (4): 565–605. doi:10.1080/08351818009370512. ISSN0031-1251.
Zeller, Anne (1982). "Speaking of Clever Apes". Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry. 2 (3): 276–308.
Zeller, A. C. (September 1987). "A Role for Children in Hominid Evolution". Man. 22 (3): 528–557. doi:10.2307/2802504. JSTOR2802504.
Zeller, Anne C. (1 January 1990). "Arctic Hysteria in Salem?". Anthropologica. 32 (2): 239–264. JSTOR25605580.
Zeller, Anne C. (1 January 1991). "Human Response to Primate Deviance". Anthropologica. 33 (1/2): 39–68. doi:10.2307/25605600. JSTOR25605600.
Zeller, Anne (1 January 1992). "Grooming interactions over infants in four species of primate". Visual Anthropology. 5 (1): 63–86. doi:10.1080/08949468.1992.9966578. ISSN0894-9468.
Zeller, Anne (March 2001). "Chimpanzee Grooming as Social Custom:Chimpanzee Grooming as Social Custom". American Anthropologist. 103 (1): 194–196. doi:10.1525/aa.2001.103.1.194.
Taub, David M.; King, Frederick A. (1986). "Comparison of Component Patterns in Threatening and Friendly Gestures in Macaca sylvanus of Gibraltar". Current perspectives in primate social dynamics. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. ISBN9780442282899.
Smuts, Barbara B.; Cheney, D.L.; Seyfarth, R.M. (1987). "Communication by Sight and Smell". Primate societies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 433–439. ISBN9780226102405.
Burton, Frances D. (1992). "Communication in the Social Unit". Social processes and mental abilities in non-human primates : evidences from longitudinal field studies. Lewiston u.a.: Edwin Mellen Press. pp. 61–89. ISBN9780773495371.
Roeder, Jean-Jacques; Anderson, James Russell (1990). "The Study of Visual and Vocal Communication". Primates : recherches actuelles. Paris: Masson. ISBN2225819696.
Counts, David R.; Counts, Dorothy A. (1991). Coping with the final tragedy : cultural variation in dying and grieving. Amityville, N.Y.: Baywood Pub. Co. ISBN9780895030818.
Gardner, R.A.; Chiarelli, Brunetto; Plooij, Frans C., eds. (1994). "Evidence of Structure in Macaque Communication". Ethological roots of culture. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 15–39. ISBN978-94-010-4433-2.
"Out of Awareness: Into Perception". Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society. 27 (1–2): 63–73. 2001.
Mitchell, Robert W. (2002). "Pretending in Monkeys". Pretending and Imagination in Animals and Children. Cambridge University Press. ISBN9781139439442.
Fa, John E.; Lindburg, Donald G. (2005). "The Interplay of Kinship Organisation and Facial Communication in the Macaques". Evolution and ecology of macaque societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521021715.
