An archaeologist considers what farming simulators reveal about humanity’s ancient and evolving relationship with agriculture. | Continue reading
A new program aims to use AI to help academics and the public decipher hieroglyphs. Here’s an inside look at how—and whether—it works. | Continue reading
Linguistic anthropologists are digging into evolution of the West African Vai script for insights into human cognition and society. | Continue reading
Two new ethnographic films follow autistic Indonesian youth and their families as they seek and create new networks of care and support. | Continue reading
Newly sequenced African aDNA shows dynamic ancient migratory patterns and interactions around the Later Stone Age that shaped human history. | Continue reading
A Korean adoptee and anthropologist reflects on how studying kinship made her rethink her own fraught family bonds. | Continue reading
Archaeologists have identified a corridor through Vancouver Island where Indigenous peoples may have sojourned 18,500 years ago. | Continue reading
One anthropologist has made it her mission to remove racial prejudices from the study of hair and find the evolutionary roots of hair diversity. | Continue reading
New observations of chimpanzees in Gabon lead researchers to wonder if the tendency to medicate ourselves and others is unique to humans. | Continue reading
When a genetically engineered pig heart was transplanted to a human body for the first time, many celebrated. Others remain uneasy. Why? | Continue reading
Low-pitched male voices are frequently seen as signs of dominance, strength, and sex appeal. Now anthropologists are sussing out whether there’s truth behind the stereotypes. | Continue reading
Two researchers look at the alarming reality of elementary teachers in the United States who are working during the COVID-19 pandemic. | Continue reading
In a new book, an anthropological geneticist writes a 36,000-year history of how and why ancient peoples migrated into North and South America and made the continents their home. | Continue reading
New research reveals how human activity may promote conservation—countering the myth of “pristine wilderness.” | Continue reading
Two archaeologists offer surprising new data suggesting people in medieval Europe took items from graves as heirlooms. | Continue reading
A series of Stone Age geniuses invented a range of technologies that shaped human evolution and laid the foundation for our world. | Continue reading
An anthropologist asks what algorithms and astrology have in common in a digital era of predictive technologies. | Continue reading
One anthropologist contends that far too many species have been lumped into one category: Our story is more complicated, he argues. | Continue reading
Museum curators have occasionally embellished archaeological finds with compelling but questionable stories. Consider the Field Museum's "Magdalenian Girl." | Continue reading
A myth persists that when museums and other institutions return ancestral remains to Indigenous communities it is in opposition to research—that needs to change. | Continue reading
An archaeologist and TV star transforms ancient hunting, gathering, and food processing technologies into lessons on how to prepare and consume nourishing food today—and he runs into his own past struggles with disordered eating. | Continue reading
An evolutionary theorist considers how traits we think of as human may have been shared by other hominins. | Continue reading
A Brazilian anthropologist reflects on the death of her adopted father, an Indigenous Wari' man from Amazonia, and what he taught her about mortuary cannibalism and other rituals of grieving. | Continue reading
More and more archaeological finds reveal a complex picture of how and when people first arrived in North America. | Continue reading
More and more archaeological finds reveal a complex picture of how and when people first arrived in North America. | Continue reading
An anthropologist who works in northeastern Siberia—one of the most extreme and rapidly changing ecosystems on Earth—argues that the only way to turn climate change around is by engaging all knowledge systems: local, Indigenous, and scientific. | Continue reading
A poet-archaeologist of the African diaspora encourages seeing the multiple meanings of identities and being open to interpretation. | Continue reading
Smartphones have become ubiquitous—but do we really know how people around the world are using these devices? A team of anthropologists collaborated with a comics artist to share their findings. | Continue reading
Anthropologists are documenting how global warming is transforming Asia’s water tower and threatening the livelihoods of farmers and herders. | Continue reading
An archaeologist examines the history and diversity of art found in the dark zones of caves across the Southeastern U.S. | Continue reading
A new study led by an anthropologist and a heritage sites protection specialist offers a path forward for decolonizing heritage management in Rwanda—and beyond. | Continue reading
Many of us believe our ancestors lived much shorter lives than we do. Cutting-edge archaeology shows otherwise. | Continue reading
Archaeologists working with an interdisciplinary team have estimated the population of the ancient Greater Angkor Region in Cambodia at its peak in the 13th century. | Continue reading
The Southern African concept of ubuntu offers a crucial lesson for the U.S.: By recognizing our interconnections and actively undoing systemic racism, we can all become more fully human. | Continue reading
It is beautiful when museums go beyond returning objects toward “propatriation”—collaborating to commission new objects for display. | Continue reading
Vice President Harris’ views on her identity are pushing the U.S. public to look beyond entrenched, problematic racial boundaries. | Continue reading
An anthropologist goes back to see Sulawesi cave paintings he reported in Indonesia decades ago—and mourns their degradation and loss. | Continue reading
Senegalese archaeology is revealing new insights into human history on the African continent. | Continue reading
Vigilantes attacked a peaceful encampment of Apache people in Arizona 150 years ago. Now their descendants are fighting to protect their homeland from a proposed copper mine at Oak Flat. | Continue reading
Two years ago, a fire devastated Paris’ iconic Catholic cathedral. An archaeologist outlines the unprecedented research scientists are now undertaking to make the most of the disaster. | Continue reading
Organic cotton agriculture in India fails, resoundingly, to produce as much cotton as conventional methods. But what if that’s not the point? | Continue reading
In a yearly ritual, an algorithm pairs medical students with U.S. residency programs. An anthropologist explains how this technology of destiny is all too human. | Continue reading
For years, archaeologists working in Mesa Verde National Park have been looking for evidence of where Ancestral Puebloans harvested the thousands of trees they used to build their elaborate cliff dwellings. | Continue reading
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Orang Rimba, hunter-gatherers in Sumatra’s rainforests, are trying to preserve traditions—including isolating the sick and keeping away from outsiders—despite being displaced from much of their ancestral lands. | Continue reading
To write for SAPIENS and most popular magazines and newspapers, writers must “pitch” their idea to editors. Here is how the process works. | Continue reading
An anthropologist explores the political demands that will rewrite Chile’s constitution—and the calls for joy, freedom, and dignity that may help democracy flourish. | Continue reading
Archaeologists' dates on ancient cave art in Indonesia push the timeline for the first animal depictions back thousands of years. | Continue reading
A study on team loyalty among British football fans shows that the ranking of the club plays an important role in how strongly supporters identify with one another. | Continue reading