Best of SAPIENS 2024
Anthropologists from around the globe brought dazzling insights and deeply reported concerns to the digital pages of SAPIENS magazine. ✽ We are honored to have collaborated with dozens…
Anthropologists from around the globe brought dazzling insights and deeply reported concerns to the digital pages of SAPIENS magazine. ✽ We are honored to have collaborated with dozens…
A Brazilian archaeologist reexamines the way people treat ancestral Indigenous remains housed in museums—starting with one important encounter. Can museums and archaeology harm the dead? An Indigenou…
Gogi is a comic strip character who boldly addresses issues of women’s rights in Pakistan and the broader Muslim world. A cultural anthropologist interviews Gogi’s creator, Nigar Nazar,…
The proliferation of smartphones is transforming basic structures of human existence, experience, and performance. How do these machines change what it means to be human? Where is your…
The scientific community in Argentina is facing a crisis. In response, scientists are protesting to stand up for their work and community. María Pía Tavella is an Argentine…
An anthropologist shares his story of the environmental, sociocultural, and political consequences of a hydropower dam in India for communities living downstream. Discussions about the impacts of da…
A sociocultural anthropologist explores the cultural significance of funeral rituals and food traditions worldwide. Funeral traditions around the world involve a range of rituals. From singing to bu…
Three anthropologists sit to talk about the evolutionary purposes of gossip. What role does gossip play in human societies? In this episode, Bridget Alex and Emily Sekine, editors…
An anthropologist uses courtrooms in Turkey as his field site to understand how digital evidence is shifting legal practices. Today most people around the world are using digital…
A researcher who studies animal behavior looks at tool use in nonhuman primates to better illuminate tool use in humans. Many of our primate relatives use tools. How…
An anthropologist sets out to better understand the experience of a deaf migrant. Why do people migrate from one country to another, leaving behind friends, family, and familiarity…
Neanderthals made the oldest string ever found, providing new insights into the technology and culture of our hominin cousins. At the Abri du Maras site in southern France,…
A Paleolithic archaeologist sets out on a journey in search of the first cyborg, making discoveries that end up very close to home. These days, a mention of…
Meet Anuli Akanegbu, the host of the BLK IRL podcast and a doctoral candidate researching Black creatives who are contract workers in Atlanta, Georgia. Anuli Akanegbu is the…
In the seventh season of the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of stories about how technology—in a variety of configurations—shapes humanity. Since the dawn of our…
A poet-historian in Tanzania remembers those who have passed but who are still nearby. “Bila Mwili” is part of the collection Poems of Witness and Possibility: Inside Zones…
A poet-anthropologist of the Chickasaw Nation honors infant remains historically used in teaching collections at the University of Illinois. “Infant, Name Once Known” is part of the collection…
The Mead-Freeman controversy draws to a close, with some answers to who was right and who was wrong. But, in the end, can anyone ever really understand cultures…
In another year of exceptional challenges and hardships, anthropologists tackled a range of issues and questions about what it means to be human. Here are some of SAPIENS’…
Author and poet Sia Figiel and activist and anthropologist Doris Tulifau share their stories of being Samoan women. They also discuss the violence and challenges they’ve faced and…
The Mead-Freeman controversy reaches its climax. Scientists, scholars, and Samoans debate the nature of sexuality, culture, and truth. After anthropologist Derek Freeman publishes Margaret Mead and S…
Christianity and colonization deeply reshaped Samoan culture starting in the 1830s, complicating how anthropologists Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman saw the Pacific Islands. The first Christian missi…
Anthropologist Derek Freeman became Margaret Mead’s biggest critic, trying to undo her research in American Samoa and her reputation as a famed anthropologist. Who was Derek Freeman, and…
In the controversies swirling around Margaret Mead’s work in American Samoa, one set of voices has too often been left out: that of Samoans. Sparked by a provocative…