Anthropology Magazine

Expanding worlds by exploring everything human.

A photograph features a person in a hooded windbreaker in the foreground looking left, away from a large tiered moss-covered stone structure in the background.

The Colonial Roots of Peru’s Troubles

Human Rights
A photograph shows the silhouettes of three people against a large screen with an image of a colorful galaxy across it.

Picturing the Deep Universe Is Deeply Human

Entanglements
A photograph features a person with short, wavy hair holding a child near an ocean with a bright line shining from the background, blowing out an otherwise dark image. Matt Hoffman/Unsplash

Born of “All That Good”

Counterpoint
Three people sit in a museum with their hands on the frame of a large painting depicting people sitting at a long table. Under the painting, the words “No New Oil” are spray-painted on the wall.

Reconsidering Fragility in Museums—and the World

Counterpoint
A photograph features a building’s white wall covered with a large colorful mural of a curly haired young person with a green sprig tucked behind their ear. The mural surrounds a window through which a woman can be seen standing with her hand on her hip.

What Does the Armenian Genocide Have to Do With Florida?

Viewpoint
A photograph features a metal statue of a man on an elevated platform in a grassy circle in the center of a park. Orange and yellow flowers surround the platform.

How the Early Battle Over Race Science Was Lost

Standpoints
A photograph features dark river water out of which grow tall trees that are sparse with leaves.

The Woods Lament For Me

Identities
A team of people wear gloves and work around a large square hole in the dirt. Some dig, one takes notes, and two hold up a wooden frame in the background.

With the Fall of a Tree, Archaeology Returns to Liberia

Field Notes
An aerial photograph features a large arc-shaped complex of stone ruins showing the remains of rectangular rooms and circular sacred gathering places.

Navigating the Ethics of Ancient DNA Research

Matters
A photograph features women in a train car, standing and holding black handlebars attached to the ceiling.

In Delhi, Women Find Their Place on the Metro

Excerpt
A photograph features a dirt path leading deeper into a dark, wooded area densely packed with green leafy trees.

The Path

Standpoints
A person with black hair wearing a gray T-shirt sits at a table brushing a cylindrical clay object that stands next to several stone fragments labeled with yellow tags.

What Do Archaeologists Do?

Ask SAPIENS
A close-up photograph features a sculpture depicting a person wearing a headwrap and dress leaning on a tombstone at a gravesite etched with the numbers “1941–1945.”

When Life Imitates Art in Ukraine

Standpoints
From below, a photograph features a person in a brown fur coat attaching a large ice block to an in-progress igloo from inside, with a blue sky above.

How Ancient Humans Came to Cope With the Cold

Nature/Nurture
A zoomed-out photograph features white-capped mountains towering in the distance against a blue sky with light clouds. Flags of different colors and dark, sparse shrubbery are in the foreground.

Mayel Lyang

Reflections
A photograph features several people wearing caps, sports jackets, khaki pants, and rainboots gathered on a mountainside plot of dirt, grass, and trees. Several are carrying wooden sticks.

When Disaster Tests the Strength of Human Cooperation

Wayfinding
A photograph features a group of people in patterned clothing gathered on a sandy plot with domed huts visible in the distance. In front, two people dance as others cheer.

Did Humanity Really Arise in One Place?

Counterpoint
A photograph features two people kneeling by buckets and working to clean a tiled mosaic on the ground.

Piecing Together History From a Roman Mosaic

Unearthed
A photograph features a large desert plain scattered with brush and cacti with a sun setting behind a distant horizon lined with mountains.

Rock Drawings

Expressions
A photograph features a square area of concrete tiling in a park’s center with bench seating around its perimeter. At the center of the square is a stone statue of a man’s bust covered in red paint.

To Decolonize, We Must End the World as We Know It

Debate
A photograph features a large body of water with a cityscape visible in the distance. On the left side, a person stands on a wooden pier near a white sign that reads: “PLEASE KEEP YOUR PIER CLEAN. USE TRASH CANS.”

Planting Seeds for a More Ethical Future

Debate
A photograph features a dark scene with red light shining from the left to silhouette a crowd of people under an overhanging tree. In the center, a person wearing hoop earrings and a head wrap poses in front of a projected illustration of a person in a white dress and head wrap.

Centering Black Lives in the Study of Human Remains

Debate
A photograph features a large crowd inside an atrium holding up flyers emblazoned with capitalized red text that reads “Decolonize This Museum.”

Embracing the Poetry of Being Human

Debate
A photograph features the corner of a large bookcase filled with books. The books’ various multicolored covers evoke patterns common on African wax print fabrics.

Can Anthropology Be Decolonized?

Debate
A photograph features a large tree fully topped with green leaves along the side of a dirt road and in front of an iron and concrete fence that encloses green grass. A car is partially visible in the foreground, and beige buildings lie in the background.

A Tree’s Tongue

Expressions
A picture features a sky with a large, slightly orange, billowing cloud at its center that morphs on its left side to look like the side profile of dark-skinned woman’s face. To the left of her is a bright-blue sky with clouds.

Indigenizing What It Means to Be Human

Reflections
A photograph features a wax figure of a seated person with a large nose and broad jaw wearing a gray collared button-up shirt under a suit jacket of a darker gray shade. Their body is angled left as they look into the distance.

What If Neanderthals Had Outlived Homo Sapiens?

Culture Lab
A photograph features a person wearing a collared shirt and apron in a large kitchen pouring coffee from a kettle into one of several white mugs on a wooden counter.

When Coffee Is Like Angel Cake With Strawberry Jam

Excerpt

Rhyme & Reason: Poetry as a Cultural and Communal Bridge

Expressions
A large, sheep-shaped stone with etchings on its side sits on grass alongside a road where a car speeds by in a blur of orange lights.

How Gravestones Shaped as Sheep United the Caucasus

Reflections
A photograph features a person wearing torn beige clothing kneeling in the front of a cave over a stone, rubbing wooden sticks together atop the latter to create sparks. Another brown-haired person in beige clothing is barely visible in the background on the right side of the image.

The Paleolithic Age Cooked Up Creative Chefs

Origins
A photograph features a narrow street lined with tall white and beige buildings. Left of the photo’s center, a large telephone pole has numerous wires extending from it.

In Lebanon, Solar Power Is Booming. Why?

Field Notes
(RE)THINK HUMAN
Get our newsletter with new stories delivered to your inbox every Friday.