Surprise! As a special holiday treat, the SAPIENS team is presenting this unedited conversation between SAPIENS host Chip Colwell and acclaimed science journalist Carl Zimmer about DNA, identity,…
[no-caption] David Williams/SAPIENS Some athletes seem larger than life. They are revered and imitated—and they seemingly hold a lot of power. But whether they feel empowered in their…
Intersections of Tourism, Archaeology and Heritage in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico Figure 1. Tourists admire the “El Castillo” pyramid at the site of Chichen Itza in Yucatán,…
Heute bin ‘ich’ ein auktorialer Erzähler in einer Geschichte einer möglichen Zukunft, die ich erzählen möchte. Wie jeder Futurismus ist es eine noch fiktive Geschichte. Ich wähle dieses…
What is home? Is it a physical space, a set of relationships, or a state of mind? SAPIENS host Esteban Gómez follows Amy Starecheski, a researcher who has…
[no-caption] kokouu/Getty Images Humans celebrate many things—from rites of passage to religious events to groundhogs. One of the most intriguing, anthropologically speaking, is Halloween…
[no-caption] Andrew Brookes/Getty Images I have never understood why anybody would think humans are by nature violent, warlike creatures. True, we have all surely had arguments turn sour…
[no-caption] David Williams/SAPIENS What does your DNA have to do with who you are? On a journey for answers, SAPIENS hosts Chip Colwell, Jen Shannon, and Esteban Gómez…
This model at the Museum of London depicts the first bridge over the River Thames, which was built by the Romans in the first century. Steven G. Johnson/Wikimedia…
How my research on DNA ancestry tests became fake news. When I was sent a link to a Snopes article asking, “Did DNA Testing Companies Admit to Altering…
Budka, P. (2018). Indigenous articulations in the digital age: Reflections on historical developments, activist engagements and mundane practices. Paper at International Communication Association 2018…
In the fall 2017 quarter I kicked off my intro to cultural anthropology course with one of those Ancestry dot com videos. These are all over the place,…
[no-caption] Sajjad Hussain/Getty Images Ameena (a pseudonym) is a 25-year-old Rohingya refugee in New Delhi, India, who is seven months pregnant with twins. Her face is gaunt. Often…
I have been on hiatus from blogging for some time, mainly due to two factors. First, I launched a public anthropology podcast, Anthropologist on the Street (huzzah!), which…
Anglo-Saxon mythologies and culture continue to enchant many who live in the U.K. Andrew Parsons/Getty Images This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republ…
[no-caption] Livioandronico2013/Wikimedia Commons This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. Over the past few decades, the…
Given that nowadays most people live in societies organized according to capitalist principles and given that few oppose those principles fundamentally, capitalists may well constitute the world’s lar…
Like many other London institutions seeking to shore up against an ever-rising digital tide, the Serpentine Galleries have announced a new annual “Digital Seasons” initiative that will recognize…
This post belongs into a series of posts on the workshop “The Future of Central Asian Studies” organized by Prof. Dr. Judith Beyer and Prof. Dr. Madeleine Reeves…
The skeleton on the left is “Lucy,” an Australopithecus afarensis that is 3.2 million years old. The one on the right is a Homo naledi called “Neo,” which…
[no-caption] David Williams/SAPIENS The abandoned Nicosia airport in Cyprus is a strange place for an anthropology lab. But there I was—at the end of a humid spring day…
Last week Australian academic Dennis Altman published a provocative piece in The Conversation, suggesting that it was time to re think the label LGBTI. In the place of…
The Ainu, the Indigenous people of Japan, have fought Japanese domination for centuries. As this century unfolds, their efforts are finally paying off. Chris Willson/Alamy Stock Photo Thi…
A Dominican immigrant cuts the hair of a customer at her New York City salon. Seth Wenig/Associated Press This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republishe…