How Museums Can Do More Than Just Repatriate Objects
It is beautiful when museums go beyond returning objects toward “propatriation”—collaborating to commission new objects for display.
Art
-
-
Reimagining Rock Art in Southern Africa
With the help of key contemporary ethnographic texts about modern San peoples, archaeologists are reconsidering the meaning of cave paintings created by ancient San in a new—and sacred—light.
-
Finding and Losing the World’s Oldest Art in Sulawesi
An anthropologist goes back to see Sulawesi cave paintings he reported in Indonesia decades ago—and mourns their degradation and loss.
-
Earliest-Known Animal Cave Art
Archaeologists' dates on ancient cave art in Indonesia push the timeline for the first animal depictions back thousands of years.
-
Do Twins Share a Soul?
An anthropologist—and identical twin—grapples with different cultural understandings of twinship.
-
The Power of Images
Selecting art for the magazine often raises sticky anthropological questions about ethics, representation, and storytelling.