The Age of Digital Divination
An anthropologist asks what algorithms and astrology have in common in a digital era of predictive technologies.
Essays
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What Netflix Got Wrong About Indigenous Storytelling
Two anthropologists look back on one of the year’s most binged animated shows on Netflix—the supernatural Filipino crime thriller Trese—and what it missed about the stories of Indigenous peoples.
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Do Things Have to Be This Way?
In The Dawn of Everything, archaeologist David Wengrow and the late anthropologist David Graeber question the West’s most deeply entrenched—and often damaging—assumptions about human nature and society.
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Five Ways Native American Communities Honor Turkeys
Some Indigenous peoples in the U.S. Southwest have a long relationship with turkeys, which they use for their feathers, eggs, meat, and more.
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What Industrial Societies Get Wrong About Childhood
The industrial world’s practice of placing children in classes of similar ages with an adult teacher is not the only way to learn—and it might not be the most effective.
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The Diet of the Future Is a Menu That Draws From the Ancient Past
An archaeologist and TV star transforms ancient hunting, gathering, and food processing technologies into lessons on how to prepare and consume nourishing food today—and he runs into his own past struggles with disordered eating.