Lessons From Mars—and Jamaica—on Sovereignty

The billionaire space race thrives on romantic ideas of colonizing “the last frontier.” An anthropologist looks to Jamaican histories of colonization to show why such narratives are so dangerous—and offers an alternate vision of Black freedom in the Sovereign State of Accompong.

These Unheralded Workers Are Helping Prevent the Next Wildfire

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.

Will Bog Archaeology Fade Away?

Climate change and other human activities are transforming bogs in ways that may destroy the famously well-preserved artifacts and human remains many contain.

Climate Migrants Are on the Move—And the U.S. Needs Their Help

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.

What Indigenous Languages Reveal About Bear Genetics

New research on Indigenous language groups in British Columbia shows a relationship between geographical patterns in genetic variation in grizzly bears and words used to identify these bear populations.

Stop Calling the Aleutians Pristine

Indigenous peoples who lived in the Aleutian Islands for thousands of years didn’t trash the environment—that doesn’t mean their presence should be dismissed.

What Do Goats and Wars Have to Do With Glacier Loss?

In the Indian Himalayas, elders see a link between the erosion of community and the erosion of ice.

How Early Humans Shaped the World With Fire

An archaeological project in Malawi shows how nearly 100,000 years ago, humans used fire to create wide-scale, permanent transformations of the natural environment. It’s time to abandon the idea of “pristine nature.”

How to Survive Climate Change in the India-Bangladesh Borderlands

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

An Excavation of the COVID-19 Pandemic

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.