Featured Archived
Seasons Episodes
Table of contents
Introduction 0 Why Write for the Public? 1 What to Expect, from Pitch to Publication 2 How to Write a Pitch 3 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 1: Structure 4 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 2: Style 5 Navigating Ethics and Reducing Harms 6 Habits of Thriving Public Anthropologists 7 Cultivating the Craft of Writing 8
Table of contents
Introduction 0 Why Write for the Public? 1 What to Expect, from Pitch to Publication 2 How to Write a Pitch 3 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 1: Structure 4 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 2: Style 5 Navigating Ethics and Reducing Harms 6 Habits of Thriving Public Anthropologists 7 Cultivating the Craft of Writing 8
Announcement

After ten years of exploring humanity in all its diversity, SAPIENS has concluded its publishing chapter.

While the magazine has closed, its living archive endures—open to all and preserving the many ideas, voices, and discoveries that deepen our understanding of what it means to be human.

How Kings Created Angkor Wat—Then Lost It

New archaeological research reveals that leaders centralized agriculture in the famous city shortly before its decline.

Confronting the Colonial Legacies of Museum Collections

The Humboldt Forum, a new exhibition venue in Berlin, has raised questions about museum restitution and the importance of researching objects’ provenance.

The Enduring Mystery of the Human-Horse Story

New archaeological research sheds light on early horse domestication.

The UNESCO Site That Never Was

In Turkey, the Ilisu Dam’s flooding of the ancient town of Hasankeyf offers a lesson in how societies choose the sites they preserve or destroy.

Venice’s Black Death and the Dawn of Quarantine

Archaeological research is unearthing Venice’s quarantine history to illuminate how the Italian city created a vast public health response 700 years ago and helped lay the modern foundation for coping with pandemics.

Will Asia Rewrite Human History?

Politics, geography, and tradition have long focused archaeological attention on the evolution of Homo sapiens in Europe and Africa. Now, new research is challenging old ideas by showing that early human migrations unfolded across Asia far earlier than previously known.

Holocaust Archaeology Proves Deniers Wrong

To counter ignorance and indifference about the Holocaust, scientists expand evidence of the mass murder of 6 million European Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies.

What Will Italy Become Without Its Elders?

The coronavirus has swept away a generation of wisdom-keepers, WWII survivors, storytellers, parents, and grandparents in Bergamo, Italy. An anthropologist mourns with her community—the hardest hit in the country—and asks all of us the most difficult questions of this pandemic.

The National Lynching Memorial Speaks to My Black ’Bama Body OR Imma Be Here Forever, You Gon’ Remember This

A SAPIENS poetry contest winner immerses themself in a new memorial dedicated to the lynching of more than 4,400 people between 1877 and 1950 in the United States.

The Scientific Sorcery of Radiocarbon Dating

An archaeologist explains why figuring out an object’s age is harder than you think.