Chip Colwell is an anthropologist and the editor-in-chief of SAPIENS. He was the senior curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science from 2007 to 2020. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University and has received grants and fellowships with the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Rockefeller Foundation, U.S. Fulbright Program, National Endowment for the Humanities, and National Science Foundation. His research has been highlighted by the BBC, C-SPAN, and The Wall Street Journal, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Salon, Aeon, Foreign Affairs, and elsewhere. He has published 12 books, including Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture, which has received six national awards. Follow him on Twitter @drchipcolwell.
In many cultures, people consider it unethical, insensitive, and harmful to photograph human remains, much less to make such an image viewable to the public. The SAPIENS editorial team explains its philosophy and approach to handling images of human remains.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the United States government used family separation and schools to try to erase Native American children’s traditional cultures and languages. A newly published archive of photographs visually documents some Indigenous peoples’ struggle for survival.
One anthropologist views the public recognition of traditional lands as a way to remember the past while stepping toward the future.
Wrapping paper is a striptease that hides and reveals, transforming otherwise ordinary objects into gifts.
In the American Southwest, the loss of juniper trees at the hands of mining and development could cost the Hopi a crucial part of their heritage.
The winners of the 2016 SAPIENS-Allegra competition to discover new public anthropologists are announced.