All stories

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

In a nearly treeless desert, Ancestral Puebloans built Great Houses with more than 200,000 massive log beams. Where they got the wood has long puzzled archaeologists.
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

An anthropologist takes readers inside a Hong Kong ecovillage, revealing a small but thriving movement built around food, sustainability, and community.
A photograph shows a grassy riverbank descending into water littered with trash.

The Mexican River Defenders Fighting for the San Pedro

Nature-loving volunteers in the Mexican state of Chihuahua gather weekly on the banks of the San Pedro River to collect trash. But their aims are bigger.
Eight pictures of Queen Elizabeth II at various ages appear on eight monoliths of Stonehenge, set against a dark-blue sky.

Stop Projecting Nationalism Onto Stonehenge

Two archaeologists respond to the portraits of Queen Elizabeth II beamed onto Stonehenge—the latest attempt to appropriate the monument for nationalist messages.
Two people wearing dark clothing hold a green tarp and separate a herd of black, grey, and white reindeer. Snow covers the landscape behind them.

The Spring a Time for Calving and Cleaving

A poet-anthropologist joins Sámi reindeer herders in Norway who are preparing for the spring migration. As an outsider, he feels a longing to connect, even as he remains “outside the fences.”
The sun hangs low over a wide, snowy field with trees, houses, cows, and a dog in the distance.

The Sisters of Loretto Share a Kinship With the Earth

An anthropologist looks to a religious community of women in rural Kentucky for scientifically informed lessons in land stewardship. Could they be a model for activists and policymakers to move beyond partisan approaches to climate change?
Brown and white horses graze on snow-covered grass in an open field under a white sky.

We All Live on Permafrost

Thawing permafrost isn’t just a problem facing the Arctic. An anthropologist who works with Indigenous communities in Siberia argues that the way to turn around climate catastrophe is by engaging all knowledge systems.
A grove of oil palm trees is shown turning brown.

Allying With Parasites to Fight Industrial Oil Palm

In West Papua, industrial oil palm plantations threaten Marind people’s ways of life. Some in the community find solidarity with resilient parasite species—beetles, rats, fungi, and many more—that attack oil palm trees from within.
Three people stand on at the bottom of a hill covered in brown grass with a white house at the top. Two cut long, brown plant stalks while the third person observes.

These Unheralded Workers Are Helping Prevent the Next Wildfire

In Southern California, an anthropologist’s research aims to illuminate his late father’s work of weed abatement. He’s learning how crews of migrant Latinx workers bring deep environmental knowledge to stop destructive fires at the wildland-urban interface.
A woven rope bridge extends out over a river to the other side.

Peru’s Incan Rope Bridges Are Hanging by a Thread

A remarkable ancient technology and tradition of creating suspension bridges to unite communities in the Andes is sadly fading into history.
Mising river people Assam India - A member of the Mising, a tribal, Indigenous community in Assam, India, explains how erosion displaced people along the banks of the Brahmaputra River.

The Struggles of a “River People” in Assam

For decades, the Mising people, a minority group in Northeast India, have fought for tribal autonomy and cultural recognition. Today they face growing challenges to their way of life.
El Pedregal Poem

Heart of Stone

An anthropologist-poet reflects on the stories that spiral on a lava field near Mexico City named El Pedregal, asking what it means to be a part of the Earth.
Antioch colony texas

Preserving the Voices of the Antioch Colony

Archaeologists are working with descendants to preserve the history of a community in Texas formed by Black freedmen and women after the Civil War.
Waterloo-redfern housing - Who are cities designed for?

Waterloo-Redfern and the Racism Rooted in Cities

Protestors toppling statues spur an anthropologist to look at the underlying urban politics that reproduce colonial and racist systems in Australia’s Waterloo-Redfern housing plans.

Saving Ifugao Weaving in the Philippines

A system of heritage ownership by the Ifugao people has helped revive Indigenous traditions and even fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Blinded

A SAPIENS poetry contest winner peers through imagination’s angled lens to consider a city that is both visible—and invisible.