All Articles – SAPIENS

Anthropology Magazine

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

A close-up photograph features a yellow Lego toy shaped like a caveman holding a wooden club posed in front of a shadow it casts.

Club-Wielding Ancestors: Myth or Reality?

A photograph features a wide river lined on both sides with trees ranging in color from green to orange to yellow. Topped with blues skies, the trees along the back of the image are optically reflected in the water below.

A Free Man: The Story of a Menominee Elder

Creative Nonfiction

A photograph shows a grassy riverbank descending into water littered with trash.

The Mexican River Defenders Fighting for the San Pedro

A photograph features a person in a red hooded cape standing in a dark forest, looking back at the viewer.

Should Paviland’s Red Lady “Come Home”?

A photograph features a group of people in colorful ponchos and brimmed straw hats waving colorful flags and holding large drums. A banner in the distance reads “21 de Junio."

Seeker of Life/Kawsay Thawiq

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

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

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”

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

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?

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

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

The Woods Lament For Me

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

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

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

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

The Path

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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