December 13, 2024
From this weeks’s newsletter
Who is usually credited with introducing the “three-age system” of Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages?
Danish archaeologist Christian Jürgensen Thomsen introduced the tripartite division in the 19th century.
December 6, 2024
Approximately how many natural languages are in use today?
Between 7,000 and 8,000.
November 29, 2024
Expressed in percentage terms, how identical are human beings genetically?
Genetically, human beings are approximately 99.9 percent identical.
November 22, 2024
When was GPS (Global Positioning System) technology first made available for civilian use?
Then-President Ronald Reagan permitted civilian commercial airlines to use GPS technology in 1983.
November 15, 2024
When did the Spanish Civil War take place?
The Spanish Civil War began in 1936 and ended in 1939.
November 8, 2024
When did the Iron Age begin?
Many scholars would say the Iron Age began about 3,300 years ago.
November 1, 2024
When did Genghis Khan die?
“The Great Khan” passed away in 1227.
October 25, 2024
What are idiophones?
A classification for musical instruments in which the sound is primarily produced by the vibration of the instrument’s body itself.
October 18, 2024
When did the Bering Land Bridge between Siberia and Alaska disappear under the seas?
About 12,000 years ago.
October 11, 2024
Where is Angkor Wat located?
The stone temple, one of the largest religious monuments in the world, is in modern-day Cambodia.
October 4, 2024
Did lions roam Bronze Age Southeastern Europe?
There is growing evidence to suggest that, yes, wild lions did inhabit the region during that time.
September 27, 2024
What is the fovea?
The fovea is a tiny pit at the center of the human retina where eyesight is the sharpest.
September 20, 2024
For how long have modern humans been eating bread?
Approximately 14,400 years.
September 13, 2024
Are monkeys the most common reservoir for the virus that causes Mpox or “monkeypox”?
No. Squirrels and other rodents are the more likely reservoir.
August 30, 2024
Who deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone?
Jean-François Champollion “cracked the code” in 1822.
August 23, 2024
What does terroir refer to?
It is a French term for the growing conditions of soil, rainfall, altitude, and other elements that affect a food’s taste and smell.
August 16, 2024
When does the human species Homo erectus first appear in the fossil record?
About 2 million years ago.
August 9, 2024
In what year did the Berlin Wall fall?
1989.
August 2, 2024
How much fat does human-generated milk contain?
About 4 percent.
July 26, 2024
Approximately how long has sexual reproduction existed as a biological mechanism?
About 2 billion years.
July 19, 2024
Between what years did the Moche civilization thrive in the area now known as Peru?
Between A.D. 100 and A.D. 850.
July 12, 2024
The number of coal mines in the United States decreased by about how much from 2008 to 2020?
More than 60 percent.
July 5, 2024
Can humans actually smell fear?
Yes.
June 28, 2024
What percentage of living cultures are estimated to have kissing of some kind?
About 90 percent.
June 21, 2024
How long did Neanderthals exist as a distinct species?
About 350,000 years.
June 14, 2024
How long ago did our hominin ancestors split from the evolutionary branch leading to chimpanzees and bonobos?
About 7 million years ago.
June 7, 2024
What plant is tequila made from?
Blue agave.
May 31, 2024
Who was the first woman of color in space?
Mae Jemison.
May 24, 2024
What enzyme, which emerged approximately 10 million years ago, facilitated the digestion of ethanol in primates, paving the way for the development of wine?
The ADH4 enzyme “allowed our ape ancestors to enjoy even more overripe, fermenting fruit without suffering ill effects.”
May 10, 2024
Easter Island, Rapa Nui, is famous for its large, human-shaped stone statues. What are these statues called?
The statues are known as moai.
May 3, 2024
Where were chili peppers first domesticated?
Chili peppers were likely domesticated 6,000 to 10,000 years ago in what is now Mexico.
April 26, 2024
Who owned the land on which the 1969 Woodstock music festival took place?
The land belonged to dairy farmer Max Yasgur, “and it returned to this use within weeks.”
April 19, 2024
What is the etymology of the modern meaning of “quarantine”?
The contemporary sense of the English word quarantine comes from the Italian phrase quaranta giorni, which means 40 days.
April 12, 2024
Approximately how many neurons are there in a human brain?
About 86 billion.
April 5, 2024
Who broke the women’s world record in the marathon in the fall of 2023?
Tigst Assefa from Ethiopia.
March 29, 2024
When was the “little ice age”?
The little ice age occurred between 1300 and 1850.
March 22, 2024
What is the location of the oldest cave art ever found?
The Indonesian Island of Sulawesi.
March 15, 2024
Roughly what proportion of the approximately 7,100 “natural languages” spoken today are written down?
Around half.
March 8, 2024
How old is Stonehenge?
The first megaliths were constructed about 5,000 years ago.
March 1, 2024
In what year did the Inca Empire form?
In 1438.
February 23, 2024
When did Iceland’s Laki volcanic eruption take place, and approximately what percentage of the country’s human population did it kill?
The Laki eruption occurred in 1783 and killed around 20 percent of Iceland’s population.
February 16, 2024
When and where were grapes likely first domesticated?
Evidence suggests the domestication of grapes took place during the Neolithic period, from around 8,500 to 4,000 B.C., in the Transcaucasian region between the Black and Caspian seas.
February 9, 2024
How many genetic markers are known to influence a person's athletic prowess?
At least 120 genetic markers.
February 2, 2024
How do researchers now explain pollen discovered at the site of Shanidar, Iraq, which was once thought to be evidence for flowers in Neanderthal graves?
Burrowing rodents.
January 26, 2024
What is the official name used to described fossilized feces?
Coprolites.
January 19, 2024
What percentage of the world’s peat bogs have been drained by human activities?
15 percent.
January 12, 2024
What is the current world-record time for the fastest marathon run by a woman?
2 hours, 11 minutes, 53 seconds, held by Tigst Assefa.
January 5, 2024
When was the Gregorian calendar invented as a new way to measure time as a society?
1582, though it was not adopted outside of Catholic countries in Europe until 1752.
December 15, 2023
What is the name of the village in Bali where Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson commissioned more than 1,200 original artworks in the 1930s?
Batuan.
December 8, 2023
How many times have human societies independently invented systems of writing?
Four (at least as far as researchers know). Twice in the Middle East, once in China, and most recently in Central America around 600 B.C.
December 1, 2023
How far back have archaeologists found evidence of humans contracting what is today known as tuberculosis?
Around 9,000 years ago.
November 24, 2023
What is the morphological term for the bony bulge at the back of the Neanderthal skull?
The occipital bun.
November 17, 2023
What is the name of the method used by forensic scientists to identify blood residue on objects at a crime scene?
Immunoelectrophoresis.
November 10, 2023
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle made a list of what he thought were the seven basic colors. Can you name them?
Black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, and violet.
November 6, 2023
When did humans domesticate dogs?
Sometime between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago.
October 27, 2023
What cultural tradition did Halloween emerge from?
The Celtic Samhain festival.
October 20, 2023
Where did the first known abortion laws appear?
The Code of Hammurabi.
October 13, 2023
Where did the earliest indication of human clothing fabrication come from?
Lice.
October 6, 2023
What is the name of the U.S. anthropologist who wrote the book Coming of Age in Samoa?
Margaret Mead
September 29, 2023
What is the name of the site in northern Israel where archaeologists recently found a 1.5-million-year-old hominin vertebra?
‘Ubeidiya.
September 22, 2023
What is the final destination of monarch butterflies on their annual southern migration?
Central Mexico.
September 15, 2023
What is the name of the famous Paleolithic cave featured in Werner Herzog’s film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams?
Chauvet Cave.
September 8, 2023
When did people likely begin fabricating clothing in North America?
13,000 years ago.
September 1, 2023
What is the name of the childhood disease primarily caused by vitamin D deficiency that leads to softening and distortion of the bones?
Rickets (osteomalacia).
August 25, 2023
What is the name of the land bridge that previously connected Siberia and Alaska?
Beringia, or the Bering Land Bridge.
August 18, 2023
How long did the first major ice age last?
300 million years.
August 11, 2023
What do the Indigenous people of Easter Island call their island home?
Rapa Nui.
August 4, 2023
What percentage of spiders can harm humans using their venom?
Less than 0.5 percent.
July 28, 2023
In which society have archaeologists found the earliest evidence for humans playing ballgames?
Ancient Egypt.
July 21, 2023
How old are the earliest-known plant food remains cooked by humans?
70,000 years.
July 14, 2023
On average, how much caffeine does a cup of coffee contain?
60–100 milligrams.
July 7, 2023
Where were chili plants likely first domesticated?
Present-day Mexico.
June 30, 2023
In what year was the first commercial toilet paper introduced to the U.S. public?
1857.
June 23, 2023
When did humans develop the ability to throw accurately and forcefully?
At least 2 million years ago.
June 16, 2023
What is the Japanese phrase used for admiring cherry blossoms (literally, “flower viewing”)?
Hanami
June 9, 2023
Which three countries produce the highest amounts of coal?
China, India, and Indonesia.
June 2, 2023
How long were humans processing dairy products (also known as “dairying”) before developing the mutations needed to digest lactose?
Approximately 4,000 years.
May 24, 2023
When was Homo neanderthalensis first declared as its own species?
1863.
May 19, 2023
Which European Union member country has a disputed region occupied by a non-EU nation?
Cyprus.
May 12, 2023
Where have researchers located the world’s oldest-known winery?
In a cave in modern-day Armenia.
May 5, 2023
Who was the Balinese researcher who closely collaborated with (and directly supported) Margaret Mead in her ethnographic studies in Bali?
I Madé Kalér.
April 28, 2023
What word describes the relationship between twins?
Twinship.
April 21, 2023
Approximately how many active volcanoes are there on Earth?
Around 1,350.
April 14, 2023
What is the popular name for the hallucinogenic substance derived by combining parts of the Psychotria viridis bush and the Banisteriopsis caapi vine?
Ayahuasca.
April 7, 2023
What are the five qualities of taste we as humans perceive through our tongues?
Sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (or savory).
March 31, 2023
Outside of the United States, which country boasts the highest number of players who compete in U.S. Major League Baseball?
The Dominican Republic.
March 24, 2023
When is World Poetry Day?
March 21.
March 17, 2023
What are the social clubs called that run many of the Mardi Gras festivities and parades in New Orleans?
Krewes.
March 10, 2023
What is the kinship system called that is based on tracing lineage through mothers rather than fathers?
Matrilineage, or matrilineal kinship.
March 3, 2023
How long ago did humans begin domesticating bananas?
Around 7,000 years ago.
February 24, 2023
Which famous sci-fi writer had a parent who was an anthropologist?
Ursula K. Le Guin. She was the daughter of Alfred Louis Kroeber, one of Franz Boas’ students.
February 17, 2023
Which chronic brain disorder used to be called “dementia praecox” (or "premature dementia”)?
Schizophrenia.
February 10, 2023
How many “freedom colonies” did Black communities establish in the state of Texas after Emancipation Day (also known as Juneteenth) in 1865?
More than 500.
February 3, 2023
On average, how much toilet paper does a person living in the U.S. use per year?
Fifty pounds per person per year.
January 27, 2023
What percent of the world’s approximately 7,000 languages do linguists estimate will go extinct in the next hundred years unless measures are taken to stop language loss?
More than 43 percent.
January 20, 2023
What is one of the most efficient sources of protein that humans can consume?
Insects.
January 13, 2023
Which bone do people break most often?
The clavicle (or collar bone).
January 6, 2023
Which animal did the 18th-century Italian scientist Lazzaro Spallanzani use to test whether sperm is necessary for sexual reproduction?
Frogs. Spallanzani purportedly made tiny pants for the frogs to help with his test.
December 16, 2022
What is Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s “word of the year” for 2022?
Gaslighting.
December 9, 2022
What part of the human face likely evolved primarily to help us express emotions?
Eyebrows.
December 2, 2022
How many people globally are living under conditions that the United Nations calls “modern slavery” (an umbrella term that includes forced labor, involuntary marriage, debt bondage, and human trafficking)?
50 million as of 2021.
November 25, 2022
Approximately how many mobile devices are in use globally today?
15 billion as of 2021.
November 18, 2022
What is the world’s hottest-known chili pepper (based on the number of Scoville Heat Units measuring spiciness)?
The “Carolina Reaper,” which measures in at 1,641,183 SHU. For comparison, jalapeño peppers rank somewhere between 2,500 to 8,000 SHU.
November 11, 2022
What relatively new genome editing tool was used to develop several of the leading COVID-19 vaccinations.
CRISPR.
November 4, 2022
What percent of the global human food supply depends on honeybees serving as pollinators?
Around 32 percent.
October 28, 2022
Where is the largest cemetery in the world located?
Wadi-al Salam, located in the Iraqi city of Najaf, is said to have millions of human remains.
October 21, 2022
How many countries have signed the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (or the “Hague Adoption Convention” for short)?
104 countries have signed as of 2020.
October 14, 2022
Which enzyme allows humans to digest milk produced by other animals?
Lactase.
October 7, 2022
What is the fastest recorded speed a person has thrown a baseball?
105.1 miles per hour.
September 30, 2022
In which country is the largest active tribal boarding school located?
India. The Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences is located in Bhubaneswar, the capital of the eastern Indian state of Odisha.
September 23, 2022
What is the name of the land bridge that once linked present-day Asia and North America?
Beringia.
September 16, 2022
Sindarin and Quenya are two examples of which fictional language?
Elvish. Both were created by philologist and writer J.R.R. Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and his other novels set in the same fantasy world.
September 9, 2022
How long ago did hominins begin eating meat?
At least 3.4 million years ago, based on two bones found in Ethiopia with butchery marks.
September 2, 2022
Some U.S. states have controversially recruited individuals from which population to fight fires?
Incarcerated people, who, in many states, are paid less than US$2 an hour for taking on this dangerous work.
August 26, 2022
What is the outdoor game in which participants use various digital navigational tools and techniques to find hidden treasures or containers?
Geocaching.
August 19, 2022
Which species of hominin has been nicknamed “the hobbit”?
Homo floresiensis.
August 12, 2022
What is it called when others in a community, in addition to the biological parents, help raise children?
Alloparenting. According to many anthropologists, alloparenting—sharing child-raising responsibilities among siblings, grandparents, neighbors, and other community members—has tended to be the norm across human history.
August 5, 2022
Where is the legendary “lost” city known as La Ciudad Blanca (White City) that was supposed to have been “discovered”?
In the Mosquitia region of eastern Honduras.
July 29, 2022
Which country has been the most heavily bombed in history?
Laos. The U.S. executed over half a million bombing excursions in the Southeast Asian nation from 1964 until 1973 in a “secret war.”
July 22, 2022
What genetic condition has been linked to the sudden deaths of some elite athletes?
Sickle cell trait (SCT).
July 15, 2022
Who coined the term “Caucasian” to racially classify White Europeans?
Johann Blumenbach, an 18th-century German anatomist.
July 8, 2022
What percentage of babies are born with intersex traits?
1.7 percent.
July 1, 2022
Which country/territory is the number one exporter of human hair globally?
Hong Kong.
June 24, 2022
What percentage of U.S. prisoners (federal and state level) have at least one disability?
Thirty-eight percent, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
June 17, 2022
What is the smallest cell in the human body?
The sperm cell.
June 10, 2022
What type of common infection did adult Neanderthals appear to be more prone to than adult modern humans?
Ear infections.
June 3, 2022
What alcoholic beverage is made from fermented coconut sap?
Tuba, a popular drink from the Philippines.
May 27, 2022
How do machines learn to get better at specific tasks? What type of learning do they use?
Reinforcement learning.
May 20, 2022
How many extra tons of plastic waste have humans produced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?
8.4 million tons (as of November 2021).
May 13, 2022
How long ago did humans begin domesticating wolves into dogs?
Approximately 23,000 years ago, according to one of the latest genetic studies.
May 6, 2022
Which part of the brain is most often associated with feelings of romantic love?
The ventral tegmental area (VTA).
April 29, 2022
When was the “little ice age”?
The little ice age was a period of climatic disruption caused by a cooler-than-normal climate between 1300 and 1850.
April 22, 2022
How do anthropologists figure out how much carbs different populations of humans consumed in the past?
By counting the number of cavities on their teeth and/or analyzing patterns of wear.
April 15, 2022
Which empire was the largest contiguous land empire in history?
The Mongol Empire in the 13th century. Horses played a major role in the successful expansion of the empire, starting under the leadership of Genghis Khan.
April 8, 2022
What percentage of the world’s current languages do not have gendered pronouns?
57 percent.
April 1, 2022
What percentage of DNA do humans and chimpanzees share?
Humans and chimps share 98.8 percent of their DNA.
March 25, 2022
What percentage of people globally experience severe water scarcity for at least one month a year?
66 percent or roughly 4 billion people.
March 18, 2022
Which country hosts the largest number of refugees?
Turkey, with 3.7 million refugees.
March 11, 2022
Where in the world was the largest collection of mammoth bones ever found in a single site?
Just outside Mexico City.
March 4, 2022
Which two neighboring countries are home to the largest contiguous mangrove forest in the world?
India and Bangladesh.
February 25, 2022
How old is the oldest piece of bread found by archaeologists?
Approximately 14,000 years. Amaia Arranz-Otaegui, of the University of Copenhagen, found the bread remnants at an archaeological site in Jordan.
February 18, 2022
Which former U.S. candidate for governor famously writes romance novels?
Stacey Abrams, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Georgia, writes romance novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery.
February 11, 2022
How old is the oldest smartphone?
Thirty years. IBM created the first smartphone in 1992.
February 4, 2022
How many days (on average) are in a lunar year?
354 days.
January 28, 2022
Which vaccine is commonly given to infants around the world as a “birth dose”?
The hepatitis B vaccine is given to newborns within the first 24 hours of life, or what is known as the “birth dose.” According to the World Health Organization, 113 countries introduce the first of the three hepatitis B vaccines during this critical period in a baby’s life.
January 21, 2022
What percentage of Americans have at least one tattoo?
30 percent of Americans have tattoos.
January 14, 2022
Which country has the most official languages that does not include English as one of them?
Bolivia, which recognizes Spanish and and more than 35 Indigenous languages, including Quechua, Aymara, and Guaraní.
January 7, 2022
What do ligers, tigons, and pizzlies have in common?
They are the offspring of animals that belong to distinct lineages or populations that have diverged evolutionarily.
December 17, 2021
Every year during the holiday season, people in the United States throw away about how many millions of tons of wrapping paper and shopping bags?
4 million tons. The equivalent of nearly 11 Empire State Buildings.
December 10, 2021
What are the two largest religions professed in the Philippines?
Christianity and Islam.
December 3, 2021
What are the four extant species in the Hominidae (great ape) family?
Humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.
November 19, 2021
The island of New Guinea is occupied by which two sovereign states?
Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
November 12, 2021
What type of waterlogged landscape is famous for preserving organic matter, artifacts, and other archaeological material?
A bog.
November 5, 2021
What mountain range has been called Asia’s “water tower”?
The Himalayas.
October 29, 2021
In which U.S. state did a “coalfield war” grip the nation’s attention in 1913-14?
Colorado.
October 22, 2021
Jamaica’s Sovereign State of Accompong is home to what group descended from escaped enslaved African people?
Maroons.
October 15, 2021
What is the term for the pseudoarchaeological theory that cultural traits spread across much greater distances than commonly thought?
Hyperdiffusionism.
October 8, 2021
The Kamloops Indian Residential School, where authorities recently recovered unmarked graves of First Nations children, is located in which Canadian province?
British Columbia.
October 1, 2021
The world-famous paleoanthropological site at Turkana Bay is located in which East African nation?
Kenya.
September 24, 2021
Made up of triglycerides (fats and oils), phospholipids (such as lecithin),and sterols (such as cholesterol), which hydrophobic molecules do not dissolve in water?
Lipids.
September 17, 2021
Which stone technology was made by members of the genus Homo and lasted more than 1.5 million years across Africa, Europe, and Asia?
Acheulean hand axes.
September 10, 2021
What is a baby gorilla called?
An infant.
September 3, 2021
How many teeth does the average human adult have?
32.
August 27, 2021
At 100,000–350,000 Scoville units, which pepper is commonly used in Caribbean cuisine?
Scotch bonnet peppers
August 20, 2021
In which country does the Amazon River originate?
Peru.
August 13, 2021
What is the smallest ocean in the world?
The Arctic Ocean.
August 6, 2021
Native to Asia, what is a bharal (Pseudois nayaur)?
A caprine (sheep-like goat)—commonly known as a blue sheep.
July 30, 2021
The San people—creators of some of the oldest rock art in the world—are native to what region?
Southern Africa.
July 23, 2021
What was the first modern Olympic Games to feature women athletes?
The 1900 Summer Olympics.
July 16, 2021
A system in which goods and services are exchanged based on their symbolic value is generally known as what kind of economy?
A gift economy.
July 9, 2021
What is the colloquial name for this type of muscle fiber often associated with performance in power sports, such as sprinting and weightlifting?
Fast-twitch.
July 2, 2021
After nearly 400 years of European colonialism, approximately how many Native Americans, out of millions, were living in what had become the United States in 1890?
250,000
June 25, 2021
Pakistan’s Khyber District borders which Central Asian nation?
Afghanistan.
June 18, 2021
What animal is featured in the earliest-known depictions in human art, dating from 45,500 years ago on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi?
Wild boar.
June 11, 2021
Which moon of Jupiter is thought to possibly be home to liquid water?
Europa.
June 4, 2021
The Greenwood District, the prosperous African-American neighborhood destroyed in the Tulsa Race Massacre 99 years ago this week, was known by what nickname?
Black Wall Street.
May 28, 2021
What part of human teeth grows in incremental rings, like most trees?
Enamel.
May 21, 2021
“This “back to tradition” culinary movement features the names of two animal parts. What’s its name?
Nose-to-tail.
May 14, 2021
Which major Indonesian island was once described by playwright Louis Nowra as “an octopus caught in an electric blender”?
Sulawesi.
May 7, 2021
David Lean directed which iconic 1957 war film that would go on to win Best Picture at the 30th Academy Awards?
The Bridge on the River Kwai.
April 30, 2021
A “phytolith” is a kind of inorganic skeleton created by what kind of living thing?
Plants.
April 23, 2021
After humans, which primate has the longest period of juvenile dependency?
Orangutans.
April 16, 2021
An ethologist is an animal researcher that studies what?
Animal behavior.
April 9, 2021
Which city’s hotels offered quarantine packages for arrivingtravelers in 2020?
Jakarta.
April 2, 2021
Which early female archaeologist jokingly placed a hex on Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II, supposedly impacting the results of WWI?
Margaret Murray.
March 26, 2021
What 18th-century scientist was mocked by his critics for supposedly imagining himself “a second Adam”?
Carl Linnaeus.
March 19, 2021
A dendrochronologist is a scientist who studies what?
Tree rings.
March 12, 2021
Which African American cemetery is threatened by the Capital Beltway expansion in Maryland?
The Morningstar Tabernacle No. 88 Cemetery in Cabin John, Maryland.
March 5, 2021
The burial mounds of Sutton Hoo are associated with which medieval English kingdom?
East Anglia.
February 26, 2021
In Speleology (the study of caves) “cave popcorn” refers to what kind of natural formation?
A small calcite deposit.
February 19, 2021
What organic chemical found in the human brain is associated with energy, focus, motivation, and craving?
Dopamine.
February 12, 2021
What is the name given to the first inhabitants of the Bahamas?
Lucayans.
February 5, 2021
What is the “Thirty by Thirty” plan, signed onto by more than fifty countries in early 2021?
The plan proposes reserving 30 percent of the Earth’s surface for conservation by 2030.
January 29, 2021
What do some residents near Ecuador’s Tungurahua mountain call this volcano?
Abuela, which is Spanish for “grandmother.”
January 22, 2021
What is an “atlatl” used for?
Throwing a spear.
January 15, 2021
Which Nigerian ethnic community has one of the highest rates of twin births in the world?
The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria.
January 8, 2021
Which East African country is widely regarded as “the birthplace of coffee”?
Ethiopia.
December 18, 2020
What annual event, first conceived at a UNESCO conference in 1969, celebrated its 50th observance this year?
Earth Day.
December 11, 2020
What species’ infants have the highest percentage of body fat?
Humans.
December 4, 2020
How long have humans been making cheese?
At least 7,000 years.
November 26, 2020
What percentage of the world’s cultures have the romantic kiss in their repertoire?
One study looked at 168 cultures and found kissing couples in 46 percent of them.
November 20, 2020
What happens at the famous El Castillo pyramid at Chichén Itzá in Mexico on the winter solstice?
A shadow line divides the pyramid perfectly in two.
November 13, 2020
Why is Baby Yoda, the infantile alien and star of The Mandalorian, so darn cute?
Because Baby Yoda is all of us … as babies.
November 6, 2020
What is the name of the sea spirit in Japan that has been used to fight the COVID-19 pandemic?
Amabie.
October 30, 2020
What surprising animal is changing the culture of mine clearance?
Rats.
October 23, 2020
What ancient stone tool traveled into space in 2014?
A 13,000-year-old stone spear point from Illinois.
October 16, 2020
According to a 2014 U.S. National Science Foundation study, what percentage of anthropology graduate students broadly—across all subfields—identified as “White (European American)”?
71.7 percent.
October 9, 2020
What is the name of the African American cowboy and aspiring archaeologist whose discovery helped demonstrate Native Americans lived in North America during the last Ice Age?
George McJunkin.
October 2, 2020
Is the human skeleton definitively “male” or “female”?
No.
September 25, 2020
For how long has sexual reproduction existed?
About 2 billion years.
September 18, 2020
What percentage of cultures studied have rituals for handling the placenta after birth?
Around 60 percent: A study of 179 cultures found that 109 of them have placenta rituals.
September 11, 2020
Were some Neanderthals left-handed?
Yes.
September 4, 2020
Is it possible to bake a loaf of bread with 4,000-year-old yeast?
Yes! It tastes pretty good too.
August 28, 2020
How many cultural objects were recovered by the FBI Art Theft Program in the “largest recovery of cultural property in the FBI’s history”?
Roughly 7,000 items.
August 21, 2020
What common piece of facial apparel dates to at least 9,000 years ago?
Masks, the earliest well-documented examples of which originate in the Middle East.
August 14, 2020
Some 3,000 years ago, did women or men make pottery in ancient Greece?
Archaeologists long assumed it was men. New evidence suggests otherwise.
August 7, 2020
What animal was lauded as “an innovative technology” by the Cambodian state to aid in land mine detection?
Giant African rats.
July 31, 2020
According to a 2013 study, what percentage of archaeology professionals in the United Kingdom identified as White?
99.2 percent.
July 24, 2020
In Tibetan Buddhism, beyul are what type of geographical feature thought to be hidden and “only for the worthy”?
Mountain valleys.
July 17, 2020
What natural byproduct of human decomposition have scientists referred to as “corpse wax” or the “fat of graveyards”?
Adipocere.
July 10, 2020
What cultural phenomenon did anthropologist Alfred Gell argue “has not disappeared but has become more diverse and difficult to identify”?
Magic.
July 3, 2020
What percentage of humans on the planet are lactose intolerant?
About 65 percent.
June 26, 2020
How many extra calories does a human mother need to consume to produce milk for breastfeeding?
About 600 per day.
June 3, 2020
Approximately how many native speakers of Hawaiian were alive in the 1970s before the language’s incredible revitalization?
2,000, most of whom were over the age of 60.
May 22, 2020
Did women and children exist in prehistory?
Yes! But only in recent decades have archaeologists given focused attention to the lives of women and children in the ancient past.
May 15, 2020
Which Peruvian export skyrocketed from just US$380 in 2003 to over US$143 million in 2016?
Quinoa.
May 7, 2020
What technology made by human ancestors lasted about 1.5 million years?
Acheulean hand axes have been found at sites dating from roughly 1.6 million years ago to about 100,000 years ago.
May 1, 2020
What simple three-dimensional object found in South America is a kind of writing system that uses mathematics, history, accounting, and language to keep track of an amazing array of information?
The khipu.
April 24, 2020
Did Neanderthals have control over and depend on fire for their survival?
It’s controversial, but according to some leading researchers, Neanderthals were not obligate fire users.
April 17, 2020
Where and when were the first bananas cultivated?
Papua New Guinea, around 6,800 years ago.
April 10, 2020
Africa, the world’s largest cocoa producer, consumes what percentage of chocolate sold globally?
Three percent.
April 3, 2020
What does the acronym TEOTWAWKI stand for?
The end of the world as we know it.
March 27, 2020
What Hollywood star claimed that “there’s been no acting class that’s been as helpful” as studying cultural anthropology?
Jesse Eisenberg.
March 20, 2020
Of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on the planet today, what percentage are considered vulnerable to extinction by the end of the century?
50-90%.
March 13, 2020
A study of 77 Neanderthal skulls published in the journal PLOS ONE found that 48 percent of them showed signs of what well-known infection?
Swimmer’s ear.
March 6, 2020
What is the only Indigenous language in the Americas spoken by a majority of the non-Indigenous population?
Guaraní is an official language of Paraguay, spoken by more than 5 million of the country’s 6.8 million people.
February 28, 2020
How much Neanderthal DNA is contained in modern non-African human genomes?
Between 1 and 4 percent of the genomes of modern non-African humans consist of Neanderthal DNA.
