A restitution effort in South Africa illustrates the challenges to scientists, policymakers, and living descendants as they navigate the complex repercussions of genetic analysis for unethically obtained human remains.

Museum curators have occasionally embellished archaeological finds with compelling but questionable stories. Consider the Field Museum’s “Magdalenian Girl.”

A myth persists that when museums and other institutions return ancestral remains to Indigenous communities, it is in opposition to research—that needs to change.

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?

Ancestral memorials from Kenya called vigango have been stolen and sold as “art” around the world. An anthropologist working to return them wonders what the spirits experience when they are displaced.

Pseudoarchaeology, conspiracy theories that ancient civilizations were founded by aliens or the denizens of Atlantis, are more than just silly—they’re dangerous.

Evidence of unmarked children’s graves on the sites of former Indian Residential Schools has triggered a long-overdue national awakening. Will it be enough to spur lasting action?

Many skeletons that students use to learn about the human body are the remains of people with lives and stories. We need to remember and respect that.

After a nail-biting election that dragged on for weeks, officials have finally named Peru’s next president. An anthropologist explains the country’s recent upheavals and shows how nation-states are “ideological artifacts” that attribute morality to the amoral goings on of the government.

In recent years, the guinea pig has gone from a humble and ceremonial food eaten in the Andes to a delicacy among urbanites. What’s behind this change in tastes?