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.

Remembering the Forgotten Chinese Railroad Workers

Archaeologists help modern descendants of Chinese railroad laborers commemorate their ancestors.

U.S. Farmers Made in Brazil

A small group of Midwestern farmers have gone to Brazil to continue their tradition of farming—but what they have found is a far cry from the U.S. family farm.

Could Mammoth Bones Reveal When Humans First Arrived in North America?

Paleontologist Dan Fisher is challenging scientific consensus about when people first came to the continent and how they may have changed the world around them.

What One Tooth Means for Neanderthal History

A 100,000-year-old tooth found in the Pešturina Cave in Eastern Serbia bolsters evidence of Neanderthal presence in the Balkans.

Offshoring Responsibility for Asylum-Seekers

Australia’s offshore detention and asylum processing centers on Manus and Nauru islands have elicited global criticism—and praise. Will they become the new model for other nations?

Remembering the Woman Who Was My Second Mother in Cuba

Upon the death of her friend and childhood nanny in Cuba, an anthropologist reflects on the gifts exchanged over decades of reunion amid cultural and economic changes on the island.

What Migrants Leave Behind

Piles of backpacks, empty water jugs, and even high heels left scattered on migrant trails leave visible markers of the desperation and endurance of those who traveled there.

Being Afghan in America: In the Field With Morwari Zafar

The U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has had surprising effects on Afghan-American communities, especially in enclaves like Fremont, California.

Why Are So Many Guatemalans Migrating to the U.S.?

As poverty and violence force Guatemalans to leave their country, one anthropologist reflects on her work with Indigenous peoples in the highlands—and shows how the U.S. is implicated in its own “migrant crisis.”

The Mastodon in the Room

As new discoveries shake up the timeline of when people first came to the Americas, how do we decide what’s true?