SAPIENS – Anthropology Magazine

Anthropology Magazine

Faces of various hominins span a large wall, each above a descriptive text block. From left to right, the faces get less hairy and lighter in skin tone.

How Power Pervades Portrayals of Human Evolution

An image shows a tan llama’s head and torso against a beige, sandy ground.

Unearthing Culinary Pasts—With Help From Llama Poop

Outside the migrant shelter, a Central American migrant boils water in a Coke bottle for his morning coffee. He carefully adjusts the bottle lid to prevent the water from boiling over or the plastic from burning. Bringing few objects with them on their journey, migrants rely on creative uses of found and recycled items in order to fulfill basic needs.

A person with dark curly hair and a person wearing a black hat lean through and over blue metal bars and use white tools to flatten and smooth painted fabric on a concrete wall.

An ad hoc tattoo shop opens on the train tracks. This diversion facilitates a brief moment of intimacy between two Central American men who make a living off of smuggling, and sometimes robbing, migrants.

Although they are in the process of migrating, these migrants are not wholly defined by their participation in this clandestine activity. During their brief stays in this shelter in Pakal-Na, people find creative and resourceful ways to pass the time. This includes playing music, swapping stories, or, in the case of the men in the photo, inventing a game out of discarded plastic bottle caps. These diversions help take migrants’ minds off what has already happened to them or what lies ahead.

Shame has long been considered maladaptive in the field of psychology, but a new study suggests that shame likely has evolutionary benefits, such as helping protect people from negative reactions to breaking cultural norms.

Men munch on sugarcane after a morning of work in the large communal garden below the main village of Boti. Everyone is expected to help in the communal garden, as well as tend to their own, every day. The garden grows sugarcane, cassava, bananas, and coconut trees as well as other herbs and vegetables.

Eight pictures of Queen Elizabeth II at various ages appear on eight monoliths of Stonehenge, set against a dark-blue sky.

Ancestral Puebloans started living in the Pecos Valley, east of Santa Fe, in A.D. 800. By A.D. 1300, the pueblo consisted of 700 rooms with over 1,500 inhabitants. Pecos shows the use and reuse of timber over time, which is of particular interest to archaeologists because it gives us a relative chronology of human habitation on the landscape. Recent National Park Service reconstructions of the original kivas at Pecos, such as the one shown here, have become new tourist attractions.

Zabi is originally from the Parwan province in Afghanistan. He was the first of his family to make the journey to Belgium, having arrived in 1999. He currently owns and operates a night shop in the south of the city; two of his brothers also own shops—one a news agent and the other a food store—in Antwerp.

Since the 1920s, scientists have debated whether the first Americans arrived from Asia—or somewhere else—some 11,000 years ago, or millennia before. Artifacts such as this Clovis spear point have provided some clues, but new multidisciplinary research is filling in the picture.

Olympics Zika - The World Health Organization stated that there was “no public health justification” to postpone the 2016 Rio Olympics due to the Zika virus. Is the fear of Zika at the games overblown?

Gift economy - Gift giving, such as during weddings in southern India, is an essential part of many relationships and ceremonies across the world.

A person with many small, long, black braids tied up and flowing down their back looks out onto the water.

A person in a scuba suit hovers underwater above a cluster of large vases covered with algae and moss resting on the sea floor.

Native American Activism - Native Americans from many different tribes have unified behind the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s protest in North Dakota against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. The controversial pipeline raises numerous cultural and environmental issues, ranging from tribal rights to climate change.

Yardenit Baptismal

amazon gold mining

The photograph features a large recreated model of a neanderthal.

prison labor

Twinship - Sameness is often seen as the defining characteristic of identical twins, but this impression is a result of Western stereotypes about the meaning of selfhood.

The Sumatran rainforest—one of only four primate biodiversity hotspots—faces rampant environmental destruction, fueled in part by recent massive wildfires, unchecked deforestation and unsustainable agriculture.

Cultural heritage - Palmyra was attacked by ISIS in 2015. The Arch of Triumph, shown here the way it looked before the attack, was almost completely destroyed. Many referred to the destruction as “cultural genocide.”

Immigrants and refugees have been the target of Tea Partyists’ and Trump supporters’ anger and fear.

Two Native American archaeology students conduct research in Petrified Forest National Park in June 2015 as part of a field school project.

In Mexico City, critics created a piñata in response to Donald Trump’s claims that many Mexican immigrants to the United States bring drugs and crime, and that many are rapists. Such rhetoric has put the Republican party in a political and moral bind.

Agustín Rivas Vázquez (pictured here), an ayahuasquero, or plant medicine specialist, manages a lodge near Tamshiyacu, Peru.

Research suggests that parents who choose to vaccinate their children often do so out of adherence to their own upbringing and personal experience, rather than as a result of a deeper understanding of the science behind immunization.

Rwandan Genocide rescuers - Compassion and a shared sense of humanity motivated many rescuers to put their lives on the line to save others during the killings.

Autism human evolution - Some cave paintings, such as these from Chauvet Cave in southern France, show characteristics that are also commonly expressed by some autistic artists.

Senegal wrestling drug testing - The sport’s magico-religious rituals, such as wrestlers pouring specially prepared potions and liquids over their heads before a competition, carry meaning and power.

Kashmir Justice

At the site of an old Moroccan mine, paleoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin (pictured) points to one of the oldest Homo sapiens fossils yet found.

Cally Steussy and Meriah Dainard clean animal bones recovered at the Hamanaka II site with toothbrushes in a school gym.

In the woods, a man wearing a tan shirt, jeans, and cowboy hat holds a long pronged metal spear in his left hand and pulls a gun out from the back of his pants with his right hand. A long machete in a case hangs from his belt.

An empty sandy desert sits below a darkening sky with yellow from the sun peeking through.

Two hands hold a book whose cover reads, "The Great Seal of the Chickasaw Nation; A Chickasaw Dictionary compiled by Jessie Humes and Vinnie May (James) Humes"

The photograph features a person with a hearing aid sitting next to a person smiling on a couch. They face each other and communicate using sign language.

A black-and-white illustration depicts a large, hairy bipedal figure walking in a forest, flanked by leafless trees.

What Bigfoot Teaches Us About Public Mistrust of Science

Expanding worlds by exploring everything human.

A close-up image features a mostly red, woven piece of cloth with diagonal patterns that incorporate white, black, green, and hot pink accents.

Feeling What We Are/A’yel jtaleltik

A black-and-white film still features a person wearing a hoodie, clear vest, and cap looks upward at the face of a person holding small objects in front of them with a gloved hand. The two are on rocky terrain in front of a graffiti-covered stone wall.

Excavating a 19th-Century Detroit Saloon

In the photo’s foreground, a cross made of sticks surrounded by palm leaves rises next to a table that holds a large pile of small figures cut from white paper. People organize the paper in the background.

Why Nahua Pilgrims Carry Thousands of Papers Up Sacred Peaks

Participant Observation

A crowd of people wearing head coverings and long dresses or robes outfits decorated with colorful accessories walk in line through public streets past a white steepled building.

Giving Winter a Funeral in Transylvania

A photograph features a landscape lush with green grass with a body of water in the center and a large mountain range in the background. The mountain range is cut in half by a valley and topped with a sky full of white clouds.

A Love Letter to the Munay-Ki

A close-up image features a circular street sign with random black symbols such as an exclamation mark and hashtag and a red circle and strikethrough over them.

Why I Ask My Students to Swear in Class

Two people walk on a sandy shore with a large stone castle and wooden gate to their right.

Ancient DNA Supports Swahili Oral Traditions

A person’s gloved hands touch an Amazon-labeled cardboard box that is one of several packages.

The Anthropology Professor in an Amazon Warehouse

Participant Observation

A colorful mosaic shows several people wearing helmets and holding metal shields in front of a pillared building.

The Rebellion Recorded on the Rosetta Stone

A photograph taken from under a large building’s awning looks out to show a fountain with green and red tress lining either side. The building’s stone pillars line the foreground.

When I See Spring in Your Eyes/yeli bU’ vuċh canen Ạċhen mnz nō bhar

Public wall art depicts a woman with facial wrinkles and gray hair smoking a cigarette while surrounded by green leafy plants as well as red, blue, and yellow mushrooms.

The Psychedelics Industry Is Booming—but Who’s Being Left Out?

A young adult with short, platinum-blonde hair wearing a blue-and-white plaid flannel shirt sits on a long wooden bench in front of an open silver laptop. They look at the screen puzzlingly while holding up a yellow cellphone.

Twitter’s Blue Tick Is a Fake Signal

Post-

Three people toward the image’s left pull a green net with several lobsters in it from the water while a person wearing a straw hat puts lobsters into a bucket. Two other people look on.

Neighborliness Matters to Your Health

A group of people in jackets and hats gather in an arc on a sidewalk in front of tall concrete buildings. Two hold carboard signs. One reads “Community Control” and the other says “Return the Remains.”

Finding Ceremony for Ancestors Held in the Penn Museum and Other Colonial Institutions

A human figure with a large white cloth draped over them stands in a long, dark corridor lined with windows on one side.

What It Means to be Human in an Asylum

Creative Nonfiction

A man with black hair and a beard sits on a sofa in the dark and looks at the illuminated screen of a cellphone he holds in his left hand.

Dating Apps Can Gauge Attraction but Not Chemistry

Several adults and children dig in a cleared area of brown soil with rectangular holes. Some dig with shovels and trowels, while others look on. Several buckets lie about.

Extraordinary Lessons From a Community-Led Excavation

Material Culture

A photograph features a cluster of stars sporadically circling a larger and brighter central orb in a pitch-black sky.

“T”

Several people wearing puffy hooded coats, beanies, windbreakers, and backpacks watch lava and smoke pour out of a volcano on the horizon.

Slow Death by Volcano

A person on the right of the image looks out at a series of mountains with green trees and foliage.

On Flores Island, Do “Ape-Men” Still Exist?

A photograph features a large green grassy field with a large mountain, blue skies, and few white clouds in a distant background.

Apparition in Sugarland

A person wearing fur clothing crouches beside a lake in a forest while holding a wooden stick and bowl-shaped object.

My Search for the Origins of Clothing

A person with blonde hair wearing a pink blazer stands at a podium with several microphones on it and a sign that reads, “Protect Children’s Innocence.” Several people in suits stand behind, with a large white domed building in the background.

Two Myths Fueling the Conservative Right’s Dangerous Transphobia

An underwater scene features statues of people standing in a circle with adjacent figures shackled together by the wrists. They are facing outward and holding hands.

A Birth and a Death—a Haunting of Igbo Landing

Under a blue sky, a row of several wooden beams protrudes out of a large wall of cobbled sandstones.

The Astounding Origins of Chaco Canyon Timber

A close-up image of a thin branch covered with pink flowering plants is in focus in front of a blurrier background of larger tree branches covered with similar pink flowers.

The Human Roots of Japan’s Cherry Blossoms

In the Event of Flooding

From the neck up, a close-up photograph features a spotted black-and-cow facing left but looking straight at the viewer against a blue sky.

What a Cow’s Horn Reveals About Khoisan Medicine

An aerial photograph features a landscape of circular bodies of water connected by thin land bridges covered with trees. A mountain range spans the background.

Why These Hong Kong Urbanites Are Farming

The photograph features an aerial shot of a circle of drums on dirt ground sparingly covered with grass and green leaves. Wooden drum sticks are arranged across the drums’ tops to form a star shape.

How Do We Heal?

Lying on their side, a person with a blonde ponytail wears a blue shirt and black jeans and points a camera at a gravestone.

Can Digitizing Gravestones Save History?

A photograph features a child with a cochlear implant sitting on a wooden chair at the end of a hallway. They are looking down at a handheld device they are using.

Who Pays the Price When Cochlear Implants Go Obsolete?

A photograph features a landscape with a large body of blue water in the foreground encircled by trees, small homes, and a few roads. The hills on which the latter sit ascend into mountains in the distance against blue skies.

a love letter to my qáqnaʔ

A tooth is held up with tweezers against a white brick wall.

What Molars and Math Reveal About the Human Brain

A photograph features two smiling people sitting on a bench in a wood-paneled room watching television.

Five Highlights From the 2023 RAI Film Festival

From behind, a photograph features a group of children wearing patterned hats and clothing—some with black backpacks—standing in a village square. All but a few children in the back of the group have both hands on their heads.

Looking for the Lepchas

A photograph shows an adult and child watching a black truck pass in front of a memorial of flowers and stuffed animals. The truck has several Canadian flags flying from it and carries a black banner with white text that reads, “Just now found but were never forgotten.”

Advocating for Archaeology’s New Purpose

(RE)THINK HUMAN

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