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Seasons Episodes

A large group of people—some seated and others standing behind them—gather under a stone roof and look at a black laptop sitting on a small maroon footstool placed on a wooden table.

The Trauma Mantras

An anthropologist’s memoir in prose poems offers insights into her experiences working with refugees and on humanitarian projects in many parts of the globe over the last 20 years.

A person’s hand leans on a car’s steering wheel while holding a black-and-white aerial photograph of a section of town with particular sites such as Patapsco River, Dundalk, and Arundel Corp. Shipyard labeled.

essay / Excerpt

Baltimore’s Toxic Legacies Have Reached a Breaking Point

In a new book, an anthropologist reveals the heavy tolls industries have placed on residents in this eastern U.S. city. Here, she explains how these burdens have only worsened since the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

A child in a puffer coat squats in front of a memorial of flowers and various pictures of an owl, placing a piece of paper among the other objects.

essay / Crossroads

What a Community’s Mourning of an Owl Can Tell Us

Arjun Guneratne

The outpouring of grief over New York’s Flaco the owl, who died recently, reveals how much attitudes toward these creatures have changed.

A stone figure with the body of a seated lion and the head of a person wearing a headdress sits in the foreground with a large stone pyramid towering in the distance.

op-ed / Viewpoint

Why I Talked to Pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hancock on Joe Rogan

An archaeologist explains his motivations and strategies for appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast with a purveyor of misinformation about the ancient past.

A person wearing a white hat, red-and-black backpack, and holding two hiking poles walks down a sandy trail lined with high grasses.

essay / In Flux

Conflicting Times on the Camino de Santiago

Augusta X. Thomson

As increasing numbers of pilgrims walk the Camino, a European network of historic pilgrimage routes, those who journey to “slow down” their lives often don’t recognize the burdens of tourism on locals.

The toppled steeple of a church lies on the ground among other pieces of collapsed metal. A large blue and white building with a gold object on its roof towers in the background.

Spotlighting War’s Cultural Destruction in Ukraine

Ian Kuijt, Pavlo Shydlovskyi, and William Donaruma

An archaeologist, anthropologist, and film expert examine the staggering amount of damage to cultural heritage caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

essay / Unearthed

Learning From Snapshots of Lost Fossils

Christian Tryon and Shara Bailey

Not all fossil discoveries happen in the field. In museum archives, researchers found photos of remains from Paleolithic children who had belonged to a group of early Homo sapiens in Eurasia.

In a pitch-black environment, a person with black smudges on their face wears a fur pelt and holds a lit torch.

essay / Creative Nonfiction

How Accurate Is the Stone Age Thriller Out of Darkness?

An archaeologist with expertise in human origins assesses the accuracy of a 2022 film about Homo sapiens who encounter Neanderthals.

Three people stand in a line holding lit candles. The person in the center holds a piece of paper with a red triangle colored in with marker on the left side, and three horizontal stripes—black, white, and green—on the right. In the white area, text written in red marker reads, “MSJC family in solidarity.”

op-ed / Viewpoint

The Responsibility of Witnesses to Genocide

Jennifer Lynn Kelly

Palestinian narratives of their own dispossession are routinely dismissed—making witnessing Israel’s ongoing onslaught on Palestine that reignited in 2023 an urgent task. But witnessing is not enough.

Several people wearing matching brown jumpsuits sit on a long brown bench, holding landline phones and facing a large clear wall. On the other side of the first window, a person with a white headscarf on cries while holding a phone.

essay / Human Rights

How Israeli Prisons Terrorize Palestinians—Inside and Outside Their Walls

An anthropologist in the West Bank explains how Israel’s prison regime dehumanizes Palestinians, who nevertheless dream of freedom and resist erasure.

Taken from under the frond of a leafy overhang, waters near the shore of a beach gently ripple under the bright orange glow of the setting sun.

poem / Reflections

Bila Mwili

A poet-historian in Tanzania remembers those who have passed but who are still nearby.

essay / Human Rights

The Viral Atrocities Posted by Israeli Soldiers

Sophia Goodfriend

Tracing 75 years of Israeli war photography, an anthropologist explains how images that reframe disproportionate violence as proof of victory have intensified in the war on Gaza that erupted in 2023.

A group of people stand on an emptied dirt plot around a square hole. The one in the center, with lighter skin than the rest, holds the end of a shovel in the hole.

essay / Field Notes

Unearthing the Origins of Plantation Slavery on São Tomé

M. Dores Cruz and Larissa Thomas

The African island nation played a central—but little-known—role in the rise of the global sugar trade based on enslaved labor. To uncover this past, a team launched the country’s first archaeological research.

A large, tan cardboard box sits on a shelf with a label that reads “C2” below it. On two small pieces of black tape on the box’s front side, white letters read “Infant” and “Name Once Known.”

poem / Human Rights

Infant, Name Once Known

A poet-anthropologist of the Chickasaw Nation honors infant remains historically used in teaching collections at the University of Illinois.

A person with short black hair looks away from the viewer out of a window on the room’s back wall. Between the person and the window is a narrow bed with blue, pink, and red linens.

video / Human Rights

What It’s Like to Grow Old on the Margins

Magdalena Zegarra Chiappori

In a brief documentary, an anthropologist provides a glimpse into the precarious lives of poor older Peruvians whose experiences mirror those of countless elders around the world.

With several people around them, a person wearing an olive green headwrap and white long-sleeved shirt cradles a beige cat who is facing the viewer. They are in a building topped with an ornately decorated gold dome.

column / Entanglements

For the Love of Cats in Turkey

On a visit to feline-friendly Turkey, an anthropologist considers what long-standing practices of caring for cats reveal about human societies.

At sunset, a large, gently rippling body of water reflects yellow, orange, and pink light. Small lights scatter along dark silhouetted mountains on the horizon.

poem / Reflections

Fishing for Dust

Mesak Takhelmayum

A poet-historian from Manipur, India, shapes tensions between violence and beauty into an allegory, calling residents and readers alike to stay awake.

An older person wearing a black headscarf and embroidered skirt sits on the ground, resting against a concrete wall.

essay / Human Rights

Living as Stateless Palestinians in Jordan

Michael Vicente Pérez

Israel’s war on Gaza that erupted in 2023 continues a long history of systemic displacement of Palestinians. Over 2 million Palestinian refugees currently live in Jordan in indefinite exile, tens of thousands without citizenship in any country.

essay / In Flux

Excavating the Coexistence of Neanderthals and Modern Humans

An archaeologist explains how remains recently recovered from a cave in present-day Germany suggest that Neanderthals and modern humans populated Europe together for at least 10,000 years.

A crowd of people, with several taking pictures on cellphones, surround a damaged structure in a public square. The small building, with its tiling cracked and wooden seating splintered, has a large arrangement of white flowers in front of it.

poem / Identities

At the Intersection of Sarinah Plaza, Thamrin Street

Moh. Faiz Maulana

A poet-anthropologist in Indonesia criticizes extremist militants who use religion to commit violence.

A person wearing a black baseball cap and a shirt covered in a collage of different images of a man’s face walks down a presentation hall. A screen showing many people elsewhere is to their right and a poster with a graphic of a gun hangs over a booth in front.

essay / Viewpoint

Among Gun Rights Activists, Fears About Survival Reign

An anthropologist delves into what the rising ranks of local firearm-touting militias in Virginia reveal about intensifying political polarization in the U.S.—and what these shifts might mean for the 2024 presidential election.

Two people—one in a white T-shirt and the other in burgundy robes—work together to hang a string of white pieces of cloth with black writing on them.

essay / Material Culture

Replacing Plastic Prayers With Biodegradable Blessings in the Himalayas

Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia, Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Ang Dolma Sherpa, and Pasang Yangjee Sherpa

As synthetic prayer flags and scarves pollute the Himalayan region, a team of scholars and activists work to spread sustainable materials drawn from Indigenous knowledge.

A person wearing a long-sleeved black maxi dress and a red headscarf holding a green umbrella walks on a public street with a silver truck and several people in black hats, helmets, and khaki uniforms in the background.

poem / Reflections

08.03.2019

Sanjna Girish Yechareddy

A poet-anthropologist from India recalls a checkpoint encounter in Sri Lanka, just months after the Easter Sunday bombings.

A person with short gray hair wearing a blue shirt holds a black camera up to their face and points it at a figure that looks like a hairy unclothed person with one hand on their lap and the other on its chin.

What’s Behind the Evolution of Neanderthal Portraits

Cindy Hsin-yee Huang

Since the 1800s, Neanderthal depictions have evolved not only with changing science but also due to social views. An archaeologist explains why visualizations of our evolutionary cousins matter.

In a wooden structure without walls, three people wearing loincloths and no shirts, and two individuals wearing T-shirts surround and point to spots on a large tan and green map.

essay / Cultural Relativity

Finding Footprints Laid at the Dawn of Time

Mariana Petry Cabral

In the Brazilian Amazon, a university-trained archaeologist and Wajãpi Indigenous people understand traces from the past differently—but their partnership bears fruit for both.

Shot from above, a close-up photograph features a cluster of flowers with white petals and yellow centers with green blades of grass growing out of a rough, rocky plot of brown soil.

poem / Human Rights

Expert Witness Reviews Exhibits for Asylum Proceedings, Franco-González Class Member

Whitney L. Duncan

A poet-anthropologist who has been an expert witness in asylum proceedings for Mexican nationals resists dehumanizing legal and political language to make space for the humanity of asylum-seekers.

Taken from an upward angle, a photograph features a shirtless person wearing a red, blue, yellow, and black feathered headdress, colorful bracelet, and several beaded necklaces. They are holding a yellow and green flag.

essay / Wayfinding

Reading the Future of an Amazonian Mine

Sebastián Vacas-Oleas

In Ecuador, Shuar people, an Indigenous group in the region, face increasing threats to their ways of life from industrial mining. But some find strength and courage to resist through knowledge gained by using hallucinogenic plants.

On a wood-paneled floor, four barefoot people wearing different outfits in shades of red, yellow, and blue dance in front of a gray wall. Captured in motion, and therefore blurry, each has several of their dance moves overlapping and visible at once.

poem / Reflections

Making Anthropological Poetry Reel

Esteban M. Gómez

In featuring three SAPIENS poems, students in a digital anthropology seminar infused video reels for Instagram with vivid history and powerful emotions.

On the left, smoke billows out from the top of several large smokestacks on a long sandy shore that a few people are walking along. On the right, over dark blue water, an orange sunset illuminates a pier in the distance.

poem / Wayfinding

Between the Lines

A poet-anthropologist in Israel looks to his students and their surroundings, calling for “seekers of peace” to create lifelines across social and geopolitical divides.

Perched on dirt ground beside fallen leaves and a log, a tan and black monkey raises a beige stone in its right hand while looking down at a small black object placed on a rock in front of it.

op-ed / Material World

Tools of the Wild: Unveiling the Crafty Side of Nature

Michael Haslam and Abigail Desmond

Once considered a uniquely human activity, tool use has been spotted across diverse species. It’s time to rethink what tools reveal about their users’ intelligence and evolution.

A computer-rendered graphic shows a rocky hill with sparse greenery at its base against a dark blue, starry sky.

essay / Decoded

Taking Cultural Preservation to a New Dimension

Stephen Wessels, Benjamin Schoville, Jayne Wilkins, and Sechaba Maape

A multidisciplinary team of researchers explains historical, cultural, and ethical issues they considered while developing a 3D scan of a South African site to be shared with the world online.

Between tall wooden walls, a child peers over a short wooden door. A pitch-black background is behind her.

poem / Reflections

A Mausoleum of Our Everydays/Nai nsang negu herouki

Haidamteu Zeme Newme

A humanities and social science doctoral student from Manipur, India, takes readers on a journey through ordinary moments interwoven with violence.

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Podcast S2 TRAILER | 4 min

The SAPIENS Podcast Is Back

A person in near silhouette stands in front on an ocean landscape with wind chime objects hanging down, all tinted orange.

1 Sep 2023

Why can eating insects be so gross? Who were the ancient Denisovans? How are dreams shaped by culture? Are people naturally generous? The SAPIENS podcast is back, exploring an array of curious questions about the human experience.

The SAPIENS podcast is supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and produced by House of Pod.

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