Over years and across long distances, an international filmmaking team collaborated to bring to life the origin story of how agriculture came to Kayapó communities, Indigenous peoples in…
On the Channel Islands, archaeologists draw lessons in sustainability from historic Chumash fishing practices. USING THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE Off the southern California coast lies a little-known…
In the northern Philippines, the Isnag are documenting their Traditional Stories to sustain their culture and fight a legal battle against dams that would inundate their homelands. ✽…
A poet-historian reflects on the legacy of colonial-era collecting practices in Tanzania that tore Black Indigenous ancestors from their communities and history. ✽ Euro-American colonial collections o…
An archaeologist and Lakota genomics scientist explain how combining archaeology, DNA, and Indigenous knowledge can help revise colonial human-horse narratives largely associated with the western U.S….
An Andean community’s use of weighing scales shows how meanings of fairness and justice differ across cultures. THE WIPI SCALE IN PERU On a cool spring morning in…
A museum curator and a First Nations leader explain how a treaty pipe, sold at auction, exemplifies a new path for repatriations in Canada. A PIPE’S HOMECOMING In…
Along mountain pilgrimages, two anthropologists learn how an Indigenous Mesoamerican religion helps people practice a reciprocal relationship with the Earth. Based on Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain: Na…
A poet exuberantly gives thanks for the Munay-Ki rites enlivened across the ages and shared by the Q’ero people in the Peruvian Andes. “A Love Letter to the…
A poet-anthropologist from Indian-occupied Kashmir speaks of hope as inherited through memories of resilience in the past and present. “When I See Spring in Your Eyes” is part…
Three researchers discuss the possibilities and problems arising as psychedelic plant medicines, held sacred by many Indigenous communities, move into the global mental health and tourism industries. …
An Indigenous poet-anthropologist writes to her daughter of the limits of her motherly protection. “Post-” is part of the collection Indigenizing What It Means to Be Human. Read…
A poet-anthropologist celebrates how the Orring people of southeastern Nigeria conceptualize the origins—and workings—of the cosmos. “T” is part of the collection Indigenizing What It Mean…
Islanders have long claimed ape-like humans, remarkably similar to the fossil species Homo floresiensis, survive in secluded forests of Indonesia. An anthropologist investigates why. Excerpted from Be…
Meet Katherine Chiou, an archaeologist who conducts research in Mexico and Peru to search for clues about humanity’s spicy romance with hot chili peppers. The world over people…
A Ghanian American poet-anthropologist crafts her own African diasporic and Indigenous identity through weaving herself into a famous story of African resistance and survival. “A Birth and a…
In a nearly treeless desert, Ancestral Puebloans built Great Houses with more than 200,000 massive log beams. Where they got the wood has long puzzled archaeologists. THE QUESTION…
An Indigenous poet-anthropologist speaks to the survivance of Native communities in the face of colonialism and genocide. “In the Event of Flooding” is part of the collection Indigenizing…
A poet-anthropologist who is a Passamaquoddy tribal member lights a path toward healing both within the field of archaeology and in reflecting on the voices and presence—past, present,…
A sqilxʷ poet and artist who currently lives in Mohkínstsis, Treaty 7 in Canada speaks to their grandmother of longing and connection, wanting to wake up the medicine…
This March, SAPIENS is partnering with the Royal Anthropological Institute’s RAI Film Festival to celebrate anthropological documentaries. ✽ The art of anthropological documentary filmmaking is thriv…
A poet of the Indigenous Lepcha community of the Eastern Himalayas is looking to find herself as she grapples with the legacy of writings and material that speak…
Archaeologists can help communities retake what colonialism and racism tried to erase through a new goal of “archaeological reclamation.” The following individuals co-authored this essay: Lindsay M. M…
An anthropologist and Menominee Indian Nation citizen recounts the story of independent-minded Frank, a man who kept tribal lifeways in the early 20th century. “A Free Man: The…