Can Machine Learning Translate Ancient Egyptian Texts?
A new program aims to use AI to help academics and the public decipher hieroglyphs. Here’s an inside look at how—and whether—it works. ✽ I have long been…
Tag: methods
Tree Rings Are Evidence of the Megadrought—and Our Doom
I love trees. I also love dendrochronology—literally, “the study of tree time.” This science, which uses data derived from tree growth rings, provides scientists with a wealth of…
What the Vai Script Reveals About the Evolution of Writing
This handwritten example of Vai script dates to around 1850. British Library/Wikimedia Commons In a small West African village, a man named Momolu Duwalu Bukele had a compelling…
Here’s How to Make Olive Oil Like an Ancient Egyptian
“Hand Clutching an Olive Branch,” 1353–1323 B.C., New Kingdom, Amarna Period. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Norbert Schimmel, 1981 This article was originally published at The…
What Is SAPIENS Magazine?
SAPIENS magazine is an online portal for readers to better understand the world and what it means to be human. AerialPerspective Images/Getty Images WHAT IS SAPIENS MAGAZINE? SAPIENS…
What Do Anthropologists Do?
A person documents a centuries-old Basque carnival in Alsasua, Spain. Many anthropologists investigate cultural phenomena, such as rituals and religious traditions. NurPhoto/Getty Images …
Scholarly Podcasting Book: Invitation to a Public Mass Peer Review
I (Ian, member of the Allegra Lab editorial collective) ‘wrote’ a book called ‘Scholarly Podcasting: Why, What, How?’. It’ll come out in autumn. I was motivated to write…
How to Promote Research on Social Media
Since SAPIENS launched in 2016, several social media outlets have been central to the magazine’s promotion strategy. Every week, we publish multiple posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram…
Revealing an Ice Age Route for Indigenous Peoples
Research at British Columbia’s Topknot Lake and Little Woss Lake shows what the environment might have been like during the last ice age. Shanna Baker This article was…
AMAA on Enduring Cancer: Life, Death and Diagnosis in Delhi by Dwaipayan Banerjee
On concepts and consequences: Can we take the concepts of speech and silence, and care and disregard, which you outline throughout the book, outside the context of Delhi…
West African Migration: The Dangers of a Single Story
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” Chimamanda Ngozi…
What Does It Mean to Decolonize Heritage?
At the King’s Palace Museum in Nyanza District, Rwanda, tourists can visit coffee shops built in a traditional architectural style. GIZ/Martin Karenzi Most tourists visit the district of…
#PoliticalEngagement: Collaboration and Creativity
It was already dark when I entered the small shop in the informal camp in rural Lebanon, where Khulud was waiting for customers. This was my first return…
#PoliticalEngagements: Punctuation and Flow
The past two years have been marked by an ever-accelerating cascade of global “events”: once in a lifetime events, generational events, unexpected events, catastrophic events. From climate change…
#PoliticalEngagements: Defiant Engagements
Working in political environments that run counter to our personal values and commitments, and with people who are challenging these contexts in different ways, led us to think…
Can Indigenous Language Comics Save a Mother Tongue?
This comic book reimagines the oral traditions of Mexico’s Ñäñho people, introducing mischievous creatures called Tlaloques, which inspired the toy at left. María Gámez Tlaloc is a tempes…
These Unheralded Workers Are Helping Prevent the Next Wildfire
The author’s late father, Juan Zárate (left), leads a weed abatement crew in Orange County, California. Jon Anderson/Orange County Weed Abatement Program A few months after the wildfire…
How Pottery Offers Glimpses Into Ancient Foodways
[no-caption] The Archaeological Mission in the Sahara This article was originally published at Knowable Magazine and has been republished under Creative Commons. Unearthed from the graves…
Will Bog Archaeology Fade Away?
Archaeologists excavate a bog in Hatfield Moors, England, to uncover Late Stone Age structures. Henry Chapman In the southernmost tip of Sweden, just over an hour from neighboring…
Is Homo longi an Extinct Human Species?
[no-caption] Chuang Zhao This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. In 1933, a mysterious fossil skull was discovered near …
Towards an Anthropology of Coups
When is a coup a coup? Reflections on the anthropological study of ‘coups’ There have been more than 200 coups in 95 countries over the last 75 years,…
Introducing the Other “AI”: Anthropology Intelligence
[no-caption] DrAfter123/Getty Images “The last thing a fish would ever notice would be water.” —attributed to anthropologist Ralph Linton I sat in a drab Soviet hotel room in…
The Evolution of Throwing
United States Olympic athlete Kara Winger competes in the women’s javelin throw in 2019. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images With the Tokyo Olympics on the horizon, Kara Winger is trainin…
Tiny Snails Help Solve a Giant Mystery
People must regularly repair and rechalk the Cerne Abbas Giant, or “Rude Man,” in Dorset, England, to prevent it from becoming overgrown, carrying on a practice that stretches…