Why Capitalize “Indigenous”?
(no-caption) Alison Wright/Getty Images Ask SAPIENS is a series that offers a glimpse into the magazine’s inner workings. Some readers may have noticed that SAPIENS uses a capital…
Tag: history
Are Pandemics Good for the Environment?
Mountain goats roam the streets of Llandudno, in north Wales, in the absence of tourists. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many have noted…
Events of Disruptive Transformation by Zoltán Boldizsár Simon
We have been discussing the prospects of catastrophes of our own making for decades. We have been debating risks linked to anthropogenic climate change and runaway technologies, trying…
How Kings Created Angkor Wat—Then Lost It
The impressive temples at Angkor Wat make it famous—but there is much more to the site. Vincent Gerbouin/Pexels Over a thousand years ago, the ancient Khmer civilization emerged…
Confronting the Colonial Legacies of Museum Collections
Berlin’s Humboldt Forum opened its doors to the public for a special event in 2019, even as construction on the building continued. David von Becker/SHF Art historian Bénédicte…
The Enduring Mystery of the Human-Horse Story
Archaeologists unearth an ancient habitation site in Western Mongolia, seeking clues to the early history of domestic horses. William Taylor This article was originally published at The C…
The UNESCO Site That Never Was
The people of Hasankeyf, Turkey, have long enjoyed the nearby Tigris River, seen here in 2019. Recently, the creation of the Ilisu Dam has submerged their town. Burak…
Silent Spring in Europe calls for a New Social Ecology by Tanja Bogusz
Deserted streets in Rome, empty dance-halls in Berlin, died-out tourist attractions in Barcelona, and a lonely Eiffel-Tower in Paris: Europe is experiencing its first locked-down spring. It marks…
Revisiting Defoe, or: Why History Matters in the Time of Covid-19
CATHERINE TOURANGEAU Why should history matter in times of crisis? The question is worth pondering. Historians and history teachers are not on the front lines, fighting for people’s…
Venice’s Black Death and the Dawn of Quarantine
The island of Lazzaretto Nuovo, shown here, was one of the isles where the city of Venice quarantined plague-stricken individuals. Archeoclub d’Italia Sede di Venezia Just beyond th…
“The Measles from the Time of My Grandfather”: Amazonian Ethnocide Memories in Times of Covid-19 by Carlos Fausto
“Kanari Kuikuro shows me a pot full of winged leafcutter ants he has just collected”. November, 2002. Xingu Indigenous Land, Brazil. Photo by Carlos Fausto Two weeks ago,…
Will Asia Rewrite Human History?
Archaeologists dig at a site called Al Wusta in Saudi Arabia. Klint Janulis Please note that this article includes images of human remains. The Nefud Desert is a…
Holocaust Archaeology Proves Deniers Wrong
At the Treblinka extermination camp in Poland, an estimated 800,000 Jews were murdered by Nazis and their collaborators. Richard Radford/Getty Images This article was originally published…
What Will Italy Become Without Its Elders?
The author’s first daughter shares time with her great-grandfather Giuseppe, born in 1925 and recently deceased. Daniela Valsecchi Our elders are dying one by one, oak trees struck…
The National Lynching Memorial Speaks to My Black ’Bama Body OR Imma Be Here Forever, You Gon’ Remember This
A young African American man visits the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. Bob Miller/Getty Images There was a pulsing I felt, a pulsing I…
“Make Space Great Again”
Nostalgic Amnesia on the Final Frontier (Center) Kanye West meeting with Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner, (Ends) Logos for Starfleet Command and the Space Force While delivering a…
The Scientific Sorcery of Radiocarbon Dating
Several years ago, I went back to Chicago to see some old friends: artifacts, really—ancient sandals to be precise. The sandals were at the Field Museum of Natural…
Big Bend: Narratives of Isolation
“Splendid Isolation, the Big Bend…” is how the National Parks Services introduces Big Bend National Park on its website. My partner and I recently took a several day…
When Marine Mammals Clash With Archaeological Heritage
Sea lion populations off the California coast bounced back after the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. NOAA/NOS/NMS/CINMS; National Marine Sanctuaries Media Library Off the southern C…
Native American Children’s Historic Forced Assimilation
Children arrived at school at different points in the assimilation process. Many still openly embraced their traditional cultures, including some of these Lakota children on the Rosebud Indian…
Gloves, embryos, and DDT: thinking with surfaces on toxicity in South Africa by Tessa Moll
In the early 1980s, researchers at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa were confounded by the persistent failure of their experimental mice embryos. The researchers had hoped…
Spy Plane Photos Open Windows Into Ancient Worlds
NASA painted this U-2 plane to cover up its real purpose: espionage. Armstrong Flight Research Center/NASA In a darkened room of the U.S. National Archives, we stood over…
The Life and Meaning of Margaret Mead
Anthropologist Margaret Mead immerses herself in the community on a field trip to Bali, Indonesia, in 1957. AP Photo This article was originally published at Aeon. In 1978, after…
Land, Labour, and Power in a Colonial Catholic Mission in Trinidad
Colonial propaganda that masks “humanitarianism” behind self-interest, and breeds euphemisms that are inversions of reality, constitute the recurring subjects of the critiques produced on Zero Anthrop…