A Letter From COVID-19

An anthropologist imagines COVID-19 as a wise representative of Earth who is sharing a vital message with humans.

Why the Camp Grant Massacre Matters Today

Vigilantes attacked a peaceful encampment of Apache people in Arizona 150 years ago. Now their descendants are fighting to protect their homeland from a proposed copper mine at Oak Flat.

A West African Window Into Human Evolution

Senegalese archaeology is revealing new insights into human history on the African continent.

Finding and Losing the World’s Oldest Art in Sulawesi

An anthropologist goes back to see Sulawesi cave paintings he reported in Indonesia decades ago—and mourns their degradation and loss.

The Fight to Secure Rights for Rainforests

The Sarayaku people of Ecuador seek legal protection for Amazonian plants and animals. Anthropologist Eduardo Kohn’s work on “thinking forests” might help.

Arrival Waters

A poet-anthropologist’s initial arrival in Guatemala decades ago yielded a new beginning—and a limitless illumination.

What Problems Does Organic Cotton Solve?

Organic cotton agriculture in India fails, resoundingly, to produce as much cotton as conventional methods. But what if that’s not the point?

Heart of Stone

An anthropologist-poet reflects on the stories that spiral on a lava field near Mexico City named El Pedregal, asking what it means to be a part of the Earth.

Did a Magnetic Field Reversal Doom Neanderthals?

A Neanderthal expert weighs in on a new theory that proposes a swap in the planet’s poles triggered a climate catastrophe that killed off our evolutionary cousins.

Social Distancing in a Sumatra Rainforest

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Orang Rimba, hunter-gatherers in Sumatra’s rainforests, are trying to preserve traditions—including isolating the sick and keeping away from outsiders—despite being displaced from much of their ancestral lands.