Is Cyclical Time the Cure to Technology’s Ills?
The world changed dramatically on June 29, 2007. That’s the day when the iPhone first became available to the public. In the 11 years since, more than 8.5…
Author: Stephen E. Nash
What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?
We’ve all been caught unawares by our digestive tract at one time or another. It happened to the Nash family several months ago. We were nearing the end…
The Weird, Wild World of Mortuary Customs
A couple of months ago, I attended the funeral of a friend. Howard was almost 90 years old when he died, and not only did he live longer…
Transcontinental Travel—2,000 Years Ago
Two thousand years ago, a sophisticated people lived in the rolling hills of the greater Mississippi River drainage in North America. Most of their sites are concentrated in…
How Archaeologists Uncover History With Trees
In the fall of 1282, a young carpenter went to his favorite stand of juniper trees in southwestern Colorado. That stand contained a large number of tall trees…
Were Peace Medals the Price of Loyalty?
Gift-giving is common to all human societies; it’s one of the behaviors that makes us human. We give gifts to celebrate holidays, birthdays, and weddings, not to mention…
The Surreal World of Money
What’s your favorite coin? Is it a refined, delicate, and dignified Roosevelt dime? A useless but comfortingly familiar Lincoln penny? The ubiquitous Washington quarter? I prefer silver dollars,…
Why the Famous Folsom Point Isn’t a Smoking Gun
Remember the iconic Folsom point? The one that I said, in my last post, changed the future of archaeology? To recap: On August 29, 1927, paleontologists from the…
How the Folsom Point Became an Archaeological Icon
The Folsom spear point, which was excavated in 1927 near the small town of Folsom, New Mexico, is one of the most famous artifacts in North American archaeology,…
Capturing the Art of Imprisonment
Over the span of about four decades, the late Russian artist Vasily Konovalenko (1929–1989) produced more than 70 wonderful gem-carving sculptures that depict themes and scenes of Russian…
Capturing the Art of Imprisonment
Over the span of about four decades, the late Russian artist Vasily Konovalenko (1929–1989) produced more than 70 wonderful gem-carving sculptures that depict themes and scenes of Russian…
The Many Hands Shirt: Reuniting a Family and an Heirloom
In late 2013, I got an out-of-the-blue call from Stella Iron Cloud, a member of the Oglala Lakota (a.k.a. Oglala Sioux) Tribe of South Dakota. She asked if…
A Double Bass, Tree Rings, and the Truth
Modern science is full of surprising analytical techniques that can be used in a wide variety of remarkable circumstances. My favorite technique is dendrochronology—the study of “tree time.”…
The Sound and Fury of the Huey Helicopter
What is the most iconic military vehicle ever created? For both visual and acoustic reasons, I’d suggest it’s the Huey helicopter of the Vietnam War era. World War…
A Relic of the Past Soars Into the Final Frontier
In 2014, Steve Lee, a space scientist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS), approached me with an interesting proposition. An astronaut friend, Kjell Lindgren, was…
The Revolutionary Genius of Neanderthals
For the last dozen years or so, Geico Insurance has run commercials featuring Neanderthals in modern contexts. The story line varies, but the take-home point does not: Switching…
The Revolutionary Genius of Neanderthals
For the last dozen years or so, Geico Insurance has run commercials featuring Neanderthals in modern contexts. The story line varies, but the take-home point does not: Switching…
The Silk Ribbon of Highways
A thousand years ago, the Silk Road was in its heyday. Caravans hauling tons of commodities and luxury goods crisscrossed Asia and the Middle East from Xi’an, China,…
The Long Count
Time. Astronomers, philosophers, physicists, anthropologists, politicians, geographers, and theologians have all pondered the nature and meaning of time. Is it linear or cyclical? Is it reversible? (P…
The Way Trump Wears His Hat
The Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, is a self-proclaimed billionaire and (apparently) a successful businessman. Yet he claims to be a champion of the disenfranchised working class.…
Spirit-Monsters and the Curse of the Chicago Cubs
Superstition is a funny thing. As an anthropologist, I’m not terribly superstitious. I try to be a scientist, after all. But science is fallible, and supposedly rational behavior…
Is a Hand Wave a Universal Greeting?
On a recent Saturday, I took my three boys camping along the Cache la Poudre River, one of the most picturesque watersheds in all of northern Colorado. Its…
Forget Not the Mighty Zipper
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS) curates a beautiful fur parka from Barrow, Alaska. The body and hood are made of muskrat fur; the hood is…
Lost or Found? A Stick Chart From the Marshall Islands
In a recent blog post, I focused on the Global Positioning System (GPS) and mused on how we ever got along without high-tech navigational aids. GPS units became…