Heritage out of Control: Human bones as inherited waste of Europe
Central and Eastern Europe – known as “Bloodlands”, the area where Nazi and Stalin’s atrocities met, leaving behind many sites marked by mass killings – provide an obvious…
Tag: environment
Heritage out of Control: Don’t trash my holocaust
It was an ordinary, unseasonably cool, summer day in a sleepy town just forty minutes outside of Berlin. Oranienburg once was home to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, one of…
Heritage out of Control: Today’s utopia tomorrow’s waste?
Exploring how beliefs and spiritual dimensions of inequality turn today’s realities of waste into future heritage and (invisible) monuments Cite this article as: Fouad Asfour. January, 2022. ‘Herita…
Images of Loss: Mapping the Future Coast
By Sheehan Moore, CUNY § Ten miles south of New Orleans, on the West Bank of the Mississippi, the trees flanking both sides of Highway 3134 stop abruptly. A…
What a Shipwreck’s Tree Rings Reveal
Tree rings in a cross section of an oak hull plank from the ship Batavia, which sank in 1629, hold clues to the 17th-century timber trade in Europe.…
The Last Wild Lions of Europe
In this ornament found in Mycenae, Greece, lions leap upon their prey. Nancy Thomas Once upon a time, people near the valley of Nemea in southern Greece lived…
A Window on Humanity’s Turbulent 2021
[no-caption] John Finney Photography/Getty Images Amid forest fires, the storming of the U.S. Capitol, private space flights and more, 2021 saw the pandemic bed in. Each time it…
Overcooling of offices reveals gender inequity in thermal comfort
Our appetite for cooling is growing — air conditioning represents the fastest-growing source of energy use in buildings, with cooling energy tripling between 1990 and 2016. In our…
When Carbon Credits Drive People From Their Homes
A sign inside the Alto Mayo Protected Forest promotes “conservation agreements that change lives,” including ecotourism and sustainable coffee. Blanca Begert The Mayo River begins in the …
5 min interview
I get the occasional cold call from secondary school students and always try to respond with some things that are expected and some unexpected. They might miss the…
Book Review: Veganism: Politics, Practice and Theory by Eva Haifa Giraud
In Veganism: Politics, Practice and Theory, Eva Haifa Giraud examines current vegan practice to unpack the emerging and complex forces at play for the vegan movement. The book’s navigation of…
The Sisters of Loretto Share a Kinship With the Earth
The Sisters of Loretto, a women’s religious community, prioritize environmental stewardship at their working farm in rural Kentucky. Cody Rakes This month, global delegates have been gath…
5 Questions About Eating Like a Human
In this free live event, SAPIENS Media and Public Outreach Fellow Yoli Ngandali asks archaeologist, primitive technologist, and chef Bill Schindler about his new book, Eat Like a…
We All Live on Permafrost
Indigenous Sakha communities in Siberia raise a rare native horse breed that can survive the extreme cold. Susan Alexandra Crate One of the most distinct memories from my…
Adapt or Abandon? Hard Choices in the Himalayas
The Loba tribespeople living in the village of Dhe in Nepal are increasingly abandoning their homes as climate change transforms the landscape. Taylor Weidman/LightRocket/Getty Images On …
Allying With Parasites to Fight Industrial Oil Palm
A Ganoderma fungus epidemic attacks oil palm trees at a plantation in Indonesian-controlled West Papua. Sophie Chao In October 2019, I traveled through an oil palm monocrop with…
What Drove Homo Erectus Out of Africa?
The ‘Ubeidiya site today is an expanse of grasses. Concealed from this view are slabs of fossilized pebbly clay, a source of ancient finds that have helped scholars…
Did an Asteroid Shape This Famous Biblical Story?
Ancient ruins show the cosmic impact’s destruction layer about midway down exposed walls. Phil Silvia This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished un…
Lessons From Mars—and Jamaica—on Sovereignty
Maroons of the Sovereign State of Accompong make their home in mountainous Cockpit Country in Jamaica. Ted Eubanks On February 15, in the darkness and silence of outer…
These Unheralded Workers Are Helping Prevent the Next Wildfire
The author’s late father, Juan Zárate (left), leads a weed abatement crew in Orange County, California. Jon Anderson/Orange County Weed Abatement Program A few months after the wildfire…
Will Bog Archaeology Fade Away?
Archaeologists excavate a bog in Hatfield Moors, England, to uncover Late Stone Age structures. Henry Chapman In the southernmost tip of Sweden, just over an hour from neighboring…
Climate Migrants Are on the Move—And the U.S. Needs Their Help
Farmworkers till soil during this summer’s record-breaking heat wave in Oregon. Nathan Howard/AP Photo Content Warning: The materials presented below contain details of racism and violent…
What Indigenous Languages Reveal About Bear Genetics
[no-caption] Alh1/Flickr This article was originally published at Hakai Magazine and has been republished with permission. Along the central coast of British Columbia, grizzly bears go by…
Stop Calling the Aleutians Pristine
Most of the Aleutian Islands are today unpopulated. Ariel Taivalkoski The Aleutian Islands, which stretch 1,100 miles across the Bering Sea from the Alaska Peninsula, are commonly describ…