The SAPIENS editorial team looks back at the year through an anthropological lens—and closes with a roundup of some of our favorite pieces published in the magazine in 2021.

In times of societal collapse—including pandemics—past societies persevered not by running away but by banding together.

Thawing permafrost isn’t just a problem facing the Arctic. An anthropologist who works with Indigenous communities in Siberia argues that the way to turn around climate catastrophe is by engaging all knowledge systems.

Anthropologists are documenting how global warming is transforming Asia’s water tower and threatening the livelihoods of farmers and herders.

In Southern California, an anthropologist’s research aims to illuminate his late father’s work of weed abatement. He’s learning how crews of migrant Latinx workers bring deep environmental knowledge to stop destructive fires at the wildland-urban interface.

A U.S. anthropologist who works in Guatemala argues that opening the Mexico-U.S. border must become a political priority in the fight against climate catastrophe—in part because people in the U.S. have much to learn from those who hold different values, perspectives, and knowledge.

As erosion and rising waters threaten the Sundarbans, an anthropologist advocates for new, bottom-up approaches to living in a changing landscape.

Contemplating Pompeii’s sudden demise in A.D. 79, an anthropologist asks what future generations will uncover when they sift through the pandemic’s remains.

This panel, composed of leading Black and Indigenous archaeologists and artists, considers what it means to confront the challenges of a changing climate alongside the legacies of environmental racism.