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…
Tag: history
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…
The Age of Digital Divination
Divination rituals around the world often include animals, as seen in this early 20th-century painting of fortunetelling using a chicken by Russian artist Konstantin Makovsky. Brandmeister/Wi…
I Carry My Grief With Me, but I Also Carry My Joy
When you lose someone the future dies. Or, at least, the one with them, that you thought about with them, in it. I imagine any relationship that ends…
Do Things Have to Be This Way?
[no-caption] Henrik Sorensen/Getty Images Excerpted from The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. © 2021 by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Reprinted with permission from Farra…
5 Questions About the History of Humanity
Join us LIVE for a 25-minute Q&A with archaeologist and author David Wengrow to discuss his New York Times bestselling book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of…
Five Ways Native American Communities Honor Turkeys
Ancient Indigenous peoples who lived in what is today the U.S. Southwest carved turkey bones into flutes, such as these from the site of Pecos Pueblo in New…
Riot
“The Voice of Diaspora” is part of the collection Lead Me to Life: Voices of the African Diaspora. Read the introduction to the collection here. Her arm is…
Learning from Desert Dwellers: Patty Limerick and C. J. Alvarez on Life in a Desert Nation
Drought is now a way of life. As a result, argue Patty Limerick and C. J. Alvarez in their recent Washington Post article, people throughou…
Woodbrook celebrates 110 years: An amazing square mile in history
A book project on Woodbrook combining residents and anthropology will be published in September 2022. Find out more below Writing about 19th-century Port of Spain, the historian Suzanne…
The Voice of Diaspora
“The Voice of Diaspora” is part of the collection Lead Me to Life: Voices of the African Diaspora. Read the introduction to the collection here. I wake…
Ancient Art Deep in the Southeastern United States
The author has helped document extensive ancient cave art in the Southeastern U.S. Alan Cressler This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under…
Window
“Window” is part of the collection Lead Me to Life: Voices of the African Diaspora. Read the introduction to the collection here. I. Finding myself lost in…
Preserving Black Women’s Stories as a Labor of Love
Irma McClaurin holds up her first book, Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America. Ray Carson/University of Florida Photographic Services, 1996. Used with permission of University…
Land Acknowledgments Are Not Enough
The installation “Never Forget” by Nicholas Galanin, a Tlingit and Unangax̂ artist and musician, speaks back to California’s “Hollywood” sign and is a call to action for return…
Acts of Occlusion
Occlusion is a term that describes a technique of erasure. Here, I show how occlusion works specifically in International Development discourses to set the terms of morality, dominance,…