Anthropology Magazine

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

Video / Decoded

Fat Gets No Respect (But That Should Change)

In this original animated video, anthropologists help reveal the surprising story of fat in the human body and in cultures around the world.

9 Jan 2019

✽

Every human has it. But nearly every human society sees it differently. Fat. What purpose does it serve?

In this video, a collaboration between SAPIENS and Aeon, anthropological research helps explain why human babies are so chubby and explore how cultures across the globe and through time view fat as good and bad, ugly and beautiful.

Animated and directed by Ermina Takenova

Written by Nicola Williams

Producer: Kellen Quinn

Associate Producer: Adam D’Arpino

Sound Design: Adam D’Arpino and Eli Cohn

Background Research: Steve Nash, Morgan Hoke, and Eileen Anderson-Fye

SAPIENS Editors: Amanda Mascarelli, Christine Weeber, Daniel Salas, and Chip Colwell

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Love our work?

Your support keeps SAPIENS accessible to all.

(RE)THINK HUMAN

Get our newsletter with new stories delivered to your inbox every Friday.