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Biological anthropologists investigate the evolution of humans, their variability, and adaptations to the environment.
Ancient Pollen Is Hiding in a Surprising Place
A paleoecologist explains what pollen in fossilized mammal urine can reveal about past ecosystems and environmental change.
Spend a Day Tracking Chimpanzees
A series of short videos captures a rare view into the lives of wild chimps through the eyes of a researcher.
Restoring Faces and Dignity to Skeletal Remains
An anthropologist explains how a South African university used community-driven research to honor human remains acquired unethically.
Decoding Diversity and Power at Machu Picchu
New DNA analysis has revealed surprising diversity among remains from burial sites in Peru. A genetic anthropologist explains what this suggests about the 15th century Inca palace.
The Hidden Ancestry Extracted From an Ancient Pendant
An anthropologist explains how new forensics tools offer unprecedented answers to questions about who likely held or wore Stone Age objects.
On the Quandaries of Aquatic Forensics
A team of scientists, including an anthropologist, explains the challenges and methods for locating, identifying, and retrieving human remains from underwater.
Scientists Uplift Indigenous Human-Horse Histories
An archaeologist and a Lakota genomics scientist explain how combining archaeology, DNA, and Indigenous knowledge can help revise colonial human-horse narratives largely associated with the western U.S.
How Power Pervades Portrayals of Human Evolution
An evolutionary scholar examines racist and sexist depictions of human evolution that continue to permeate science, education, and popular culture.
What Bigfoot Teaches Us About Public Mistrust of Science
In the 1960s, credentialed scientists, including physical anthropologists, hunted for the legendary Sasquatch. How did they fall for the hoax?
Ancient DNA Supports Swahili Oral Traditions
Two researchers explain how ancient DNA research is helping to restore the origin story of the Swahili people along the coastal region of East Africa.
Twitter’s Blue Tick Is a Fake Signal
Evolutionary theory can help us better understand the recent debacle about social media platforms' popular symbol as a signaling problem.
Neighborliness Matters to Your Health
Drawing from cross-cultural research, an anthropologist shows how neighborliness can lessen wealth-based health disparities.
Finding Ceremony for Ancestors Held in the Penn Museum and Other Colonial Institutions
An anthropologist and an organizer try to connect descendant communities with the remains of 20 Black Philadelphians slated for court-ordered burial.
Slow Death by Volcano
A biocultural anthropologist shares new research on the surprising long-term hazards of volcanoes in Iceland—and how to address them.
On Flores Island, Do “Ape-Men” Still Exist?
Islanders have long claimed ape-like humans, remarkably similar to the fossil species Homo floresiensis, survive in secluded forests of Indonesia. An anthropologist investigates why.
What Molars and Math Reveal About the Human Brain
A paleoanthropologist explains what fossilized teeth—analyzed through a recently developed mathematical equation—can tell us about how brains have developed in utero over millions of years of human evolution.
How the Early Battle Over Race Science Was Lost
Celebrated 19th-century biologist Ernst Haeckel pushed race science as his little-known protégé Nikolai Miklucho-Maclay defended Indigenous rights. A biological anthropologist reflects on the impacts of their ruptured relationship.
How Ancient Humans Came to Cope With the Cold
Two anthropologists explain how humans managed to not just survive but dominate northern climates despite evolutionary origins in—and hence, biological predispositions to—warmer environments.
Embracing the Poetry of Being Human
A contributor to a special series on decolonizing anthropology rejects the discipline's colonial and racist roots and instead pursues ways of doing science that center human liberation and possibility.
Is a “Sweet Tooth” Genetic?
An anthropologist explains the evolutionary origins of why so many people seem practically programmed to love sugar.
Monogamy. Grandmas. Milk. The Evolution of Childhood Is Very Strange.
In a new book, Growing Up Human, a bioarchaeologist chronicles some of the most surprising evolutionary adaptations of babies, parents, and grandparents.
The Family Lives of the Last Neanderthals
Two anthropologists explain a novel genetic analysis of ancient DNA and artifacts that suggests Neanderthals in Siberia lived in close-knit communities.
Hunting Down the Facts About Paleo Diets
An evolutionary anthropologist argues that Paleolithic diets were much more varied than people think based on his research with the Hadza community, contemporary hunter-gatherers in Tanzania.
Will a Nobel Prize Make Paleogenomics More Accountable?
An anthropologist offers possible directions for ancient DNA studies moving forward—especially regarding the field’s complex histories with Indigenous communities and public education.
Why Indigenous Fire Management Works
Three researchers use a study of the cypress pine in Arnhem Land, Australia, to explain why large-scale, institutional fire management is inferior to sustainable cultural burning.
Extracting Hominin Evolution From Fossilized Teeth
Two scientists explain how analyses of oxygen isotopes from 17-million-year-old ape teeth could lead to new insights on early human evolution amid environmental changes.
Was Our Skin Meant for the Sun?
An anthropologist examines the history of human skin under the sun, revealing how evolution and culture conspired to shape our outermost organ.
The Problems of Evolution as a “March of Progress”
The idea that evolution is a hierarchy of complexity with humans on top lurks in everything from biology classes to politics. It’s time to unlearn this false and harmful view.
What the Anthropology of Smell Reveals About Humanity
Millions of people have lost their sense of smell to COVID-19 and other conditions. Anthropologists are investigating the surprising significance of this underrated sense.
Do Children Need Special Foods?
An anthropologist slices through myths about “picky” eating and the biological necessity of kids’ foods, and reimagines ways to feed future generations.
Biological Science Rejects the Sex Binary, and That’s Good for Humanity
Evidence from various sciences reveals that there are diverse ways of being male, female, or both. An anthropologist argues that embracing these truths will help humans flourish.
Busting Myths About Sex and Gender
In a newly revised book, an anthropologist dismantles harmful untruths about society, including notions about the nature of differences between men and women.