How Diverse Was Medieval Britain?
An archaeologist explains how studies of ancient DNA and objects reveal that expansive migrations led to much greater diversity in medieval Britain than most people imagine today. This…
Tag: history
A Somali Archaeologist Is Championing Heritage in the Horn of Africa
An interview with Sada Mire dives into the difficulties and rewards of preserving history and letting local perspectives guide heritage management in Somalia and Somaliland. ✽ Somalia and…
Book Review: Violent Utopia: Dispossession and Black Restoration in Tulsa by Jovan Scott Lewis
In Violent Utopia: Dispossession and Black Restoration in Tulsa, Jovan Scott Lewis explores the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in the city’s Greenwood neighbourhood (known colloquially as ‘Black…
The Aztec Antichrist Chronicles Indigenous Resistance and Religious Conversion
An exceedingly rare notebook from 16th-century Mexico contains plays about the Antichrist told by the Aztecs’ descendants. An anthropologist recounts his rediscovery of the notebook and explains the…
Unsung Native Collaborators in Anthropology
Anthropologists such as Franz Boas and Margaret Mead could not have achieved success without their local assistants’ insider knowledge and extensive labor. ✽ Growing up a Brown girl…
Theory as reproduction: Reflections on the history of feminist anthropology in Australia Part 3
The Familiar Strange · Theory as reproduction: Reflections on the history of feminist anthropology in Australia Part 3 We’re back this week and with a very special collaboration.…
With So Few Farmers, Why Are Video Games About Farming So Popular?
An archaeologist considers what farming simulators reveal about humanity’s ancient and evolving relationship with agriculture. ✽ “I hate when I have to harvest at night,” my husband complained…
Was Our Skin Meant for the Sun?
An anthropologist examines the history of human skin under the sun, revealing how evolution and culture conspired to shape our outermost organ. This article was originally published at…
Finding Mental Health Issues Hidden in the Past
An archaeologist speculates about how to uncover evidence of depression, anxiety, and neurodiversities in ancient humans. ✽ Hi, my name is Paige, and I have generalized anxiety and…
What Ended This Hub of Ancient Maya Life?
A bioarchaeologist reflects on how a team of scientists investigated various elements that contributed to the destabilization and ultimate breakdown of Mayapán. This article was originally published …
An Archaeology of Personhood and Abortion
Opinions about fetal personhood and abortion have fluctuated enormously throughout history and differ in surprising ways between cultures. ✽ After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade…
Peeling Back the Myth of a “White” Midwest
The popular image of the U.S. heartland as only a place of rural, hardworking white farmers has always been a larger-than-life myth. In a new book, Imagining the…
Celebrating 100 Years of Santa Fe’s Indian Market
The School for American Research (SAR) started the Santa Fe Indian Market one hundred years ago this September. SAR’s first director,…
We All Love Roses
SAPIENS Poet-in-Residence Jason Vasser-Elong reflects on horrific cycles of violence—and highlights injustices that are often papered over. We All Love Roses – Listen Some say it’s human nature…
Valentina Napolitano & Kristin Norget: Pope Francis, Reconciliation, and the State
At the end of July, a remarkable event unfolded in three distinct but significant sites in Canada. Pope Francis, the Argentinian current supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic…
Book Review: The Richer, The Poorer: How Britain Enriched the Few and Failed the Poor by Stewart Lansley
In The Richer, The Poorer: How Britain Enriched the Few and Failed the Poor, Stewart Lansley explores how public policy has shaped economic inequality in Britain since the nineteenth century.…
Difficult Truths: Confronting Irish Industrial Schools
[no-caption] Matt Anderson Photography/Getty Images This article was originally published at Otherwise magazine and has been republished with permission as a lightly edited excerpt. CONST…
Difficult Truths: Confronting Irish Industrial Schools
This article was originally published at Otherwise magazine and has been republished with permission as a lightly edited excerpt. CONSTELLATIONS The 1918 Spanish flu altered the course of…
What Ancient Stone “Swiss Army Knives” Mean
Multipurpose ancient stone tools harbor more clues about human sociality than initially meet the eye. Paloma de la Peñ This article was originally published in The Conversation and…
What Ancient Stone “Swiss Army Knives” Mean
This article was originally published in The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. Humans are the only species to live in every environmental niche in the…
Stop Projecting Nationalism Onto Stonehenge
English Heritage beamed eight portraits of Queen Elizabeth II onto Stonehenge, sparking controversy among archaeologists and the general public. Raj Valley/Alamy In late May, eight images…
Stop Projecting Nationalism Onto Stonehenge
In late May, eight images of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II were projected onto the megaliths of Stonehenge to celebrate the monarch’s 70 years on the throne.…
Did Margaret Mead Think a Healed Femur Was the Earliest Sign of Civilization?
An anthropologist digs into the origins of a popular story attributed to Margaret Mead about the original sign of civilization. ✽ According to a commonly shared story, the…
Did Margaret Mead Think a Healed Femur Was the Earliest Sign of Civilization?
According to a commonly shared story, the anthropologist Margaret Mead was supposedly asked by a student what she thought was the earliest sign of a civilized society. There…