A Strange Past Returns Strangely
The last time I heard anyone utter the name, Przemysl, I must have been ten or eleven years old. In his thickly Yiddishized English, my maternal grandfather must…
Tag: history
Reviving Huaycán—and the Community That Surrounds It
Aracely Solano, a youth volunteer and member of the Huaycán Cultural collective, welcomes visitors to the archaeological site outside of Lima, Peru. Daniel Meza Just an hour’s drive…
Derek Hall: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: A Response to David Harvey
David Harvey’s February 25 FocaalBlog post is presented as “An Interim Report” on “Recent Events in the Ukraine”. Harvey’s essay effectively covers some of the core forces that…
Book Review: White Philanthropy: Carnegie Corporation’s ‘An American Dilemma’ and the Making of a White World Order by Maribel Morey
In White Philanthropy: Carnegie Corporation’s An American Dilemma and the Making of a White World Order, Maribel Morey explores the story behind the production of the influential study on US…
“Cowboys and Indians”—When Dirt Rocks Are Dynamite
The Lone Ranger and Tonto. Silver Screen Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images “With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fi…
Margaret Mead Imagined Different Futures
Anthropologist Margaret Mead (center), actor Robert Redford (left), and historian Lola Van Wagenen (right) attend “A Future With Alternatives,” a symposium held in 1978 in New York City.…
At the Heart of It All
For its practitioners, archaeology can feel like it is unearthing events deep in the past … until it doesn’t. What is the experience of researchers who discover their…
David Sutton on his book, Bigger Fish to Fry
Interview by Ariana Gunderson https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/SuttonBigger Ariana Gunderson: You write that “cooking involves a code and its instantiations,” (Sutton 2021, 15). Do you c…
Writing Life No. 16: An Interview with Warwick Anderson by James Dunk
Figure 1: Writing and thinking in anticipation of writing: notes stacked in files next to a computer (Warkwick’s desk). In the early days of freedom after a long…
A Lens on Cyprus Reunification
[no-caption] Vasili Sotiropulos Panikos sat on a beach in Cyprus, dressed in a blue Speedo and straw hat, sipping whiskey with his friends. Behind him, the Mediterranean Sea…
How “Wilderness” Was Invented Without Indigenous Peoples
Anthropologist Spencer Greening, a member of the Gitga’at First Nation, maps 2,000-year-old fish traps in an intertidal area as part of his graduate studies in Indigenous resource management…
Redrawing the Boundaries
For many, archaeology means digging up historical artifacts from beneath the ground. But to some, that framework is also violent and colonialist. What would it mean to leave…
Egyptology Has a Problem: Patriarchy
Ramses II built many temples to his own divinity, like the Ramesseum in Luxor, originally called the Temple of Millions of Years to imply his reign would never…
What Egyptian Pharaohs Can Tell Us About Modern Tyrants
Using religion to justify his rule, King Taharqa is shown nestled protectively between the legs of the god Amen in his animal form, implying the king knew the…
Raiding Graves—Not to Rob but to Remember
Reconstruction of a chamber grave from eastern France. B. Clarys/PCR espaces et pratiques funéraires en Alsace aux époques mérovingienne et carolingienne This article was originally publ…
How Filipino Sailors—and Coconuts—Helped Create Mexico’s National Drink
While visiting Oaxaca, Mexico, last year, I joined a mezcal tasting tour. The guide, Antonio, asked participants to introduce ourselves. When I told everyone I was an anthropologist…
A Hidden Figure in North American Archaeology
As a historian of science, I am interested in determining who gets credit for scientific discoveries and why. Sadly, credit often goes to the powerful and connected, not…
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…
David Graeber LSE Tribute Seminar: Debt
Chair: Alpa Shah Discussants: Keith Hart & Maka Suarez In 2011, David published Debt: The First 5000 Years, a book that would establish him as one of the major…
You Won’t Survive the Apocalypse Alone
Cooperation and kindness are key qualities necessary for surviving disasters, as demonstrated by the volunteers who distributed donated supplies after Superstorm Sandy hit New York City. Robe…
Head of a Maiden
My poem “Head of a Maiden” is my response to the recent New York Times article “Looking for a Stolen Idol? Visit the Museum of the Manhattan D.A.”…
The Emotional Logic of a Black Poetics: Truth, Metaphor, Beauty, Joy
In this free live event, Poetry Editor Christine Weeber and SAPIENS Public Anthropology Fellow Eshe Lewis will speak with Justin D. Wright, a doctoral student in sociocultural anthropology…