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Anthropology

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future

Animals and humans Anthropology Archaeology Automation and robotics Cities Demography and migration Economic history Economics Education Environmental history Fairness and equality Future of technology Gender Global history History History of technology Human rights and justice Information and communication Making Nations and empires Politics and government Poverty and development Progress and modernity Public health Race and ethnicity Religion The ancient world The environment The future War and peace Work

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An arid landscape with rocky ground, sparse green shrubs and distant hills under a cloudy sky.

essayProgress and modernity

The shadow of prosperity

A shrub meant to end hunger now chokes Kenya’s farmlands. It’s a parable of how visions of progress can outgrow their promises

Samuel F Derbyshire

A round pot encircles a hole in the soil, around the hole are dried leaves, a stone and a stick.

essayAnthropology

Spider divination

Life is complicated. In Cameroon, initiated diviners read the messages of spiders to untangle possible futures

David Zeitlyn

Vintage photo of people erecting tall structures in a tropical setting with palm trees and a thatched building.

videoArt

A young Rockefeller collects art on a fateful journey to New Guinea

7 minutes

Black and white photo of a woman sitting in front of a bookshelf wearing a light blouse and speaking.

videoAnthropology

Margaret Mead explains why the family was entering a brave new world in this 1959 film

29 minutes

Photo of ornate 18th-century women’s shoes with floral embroidery and green trim on a neutral background.

essayDesign and fashion

Walk in these

Shoes are deeply personal, literally moulded to our lives. But they create our social lives as much as express them

Matthew McCormack

Black and white photo of a group of men playing musical instruments and sitting in a wooden room.

essayMusic

The beat of goombay

Diasporas are made of vast constellations of countless people, fused together through memory, meaning – and music

Salwa Halloway

Weathered hands holding a small, carved stone tool with intricate details, set against a blurred background.

videoArchaeology

At a prehistoric pigment mine, researchers glimpse our earliest moments in the Americas

25 minutes

A beaver dam on a calm lake surrounded by dense evergreen forest with mountains faintly visible in the background.

essayAnimals and humans

Animals taught us culture

Prehistoric humans didn’t create art and architecture out of nothing. They took inspiration from the nonhuman world

Sarah Newman

Three ancient human skeletons laid side by side in an archaeological excavation site.

essayArchaeology

Deep time and the revenant

In enigmatic burials, crafted to bind the bodies within, we can see how truly ancient our fears of the undead must be

Rebecca Batley

A rocky cliff with natural caves and green vegetation growing on the surface.

essayHuman evolution

The other Homo sapiens

We are just one branch of a diverse human family tree. Aside from Neanderthals, who were they – and why did we replace them?

Nick Longrich

Photo of a woman meditating by a fire in a dimly lit room with artwork on the walls and others seated in the background.

videoAnthropology

For an Amazonian female shaman, ayahuasca ceremonies are a rite and a business

30 minutes

Aerial photo of a winding river through lush green rainforest with dramatic cloud formations in the sky above.

essayPublic health

Hearts and brains

Humans always end up with clogged arteries, right? That’s not what the lives of the Tsimane in the Amazon basin tell us

Ben Daitz

A man standing on a balcony of a brick apartment building, with tarps and debris in foreground.

essayPolitics and government

The end of neoliberalism?

The case of Mexico shows that, despite a proliferating discourse that it is over, neoliberalism is as relentless as ever

Inés Escobar González

Black and white photo of a group of people standing outdoors on a slope by a pond with trees and bushes in the background.

essayReligion

The script creator

Pau Cin Hau dreamt of an alphabet for a language that had never been written down. So began the religion of Laipianism

Bikash K Bhattacharya

Close-up photo of a wooden mask with fur eyebrows, hollow eyes, a rounded mouth opening and long black hair against a dark background.

essayAnthropology

Witches around the world

The belief in witches is an almost universal feature of human societies. What does it reveal about our deepest fears?

Gregory Forth

A child peeking over the back of a horse in a grassy open field with a distant horizon and a slightly cloudy sky.

videoAnthropology

Does Mogi’s future lie with her horses on the Mongolian steppe, or in the city?

16 minutes

A man and a woman smiling with their hands on the shoulders of a Neanderthal figure with long hair and a beard but in modern clothes.

videoGenetics

Why it took a century to work out that humans interbred with Neanderthals

22 minutes

A black-and-white photo of a person riding a horse in, with a close-up of another horse in the foreground under bright sunlight.

essayAnthropology

Your body is an archive

If human knowledge can disappear so easily, why have so many cultural practices survived without written records?

Helena Miton

Three women in traditional attire stand outdoors in a dry landscape. One person carries a child on their back while another holds a walking stick.

essayAnthropology

The Ju/’hoansi protocol

Hunter-gatherer societies are highly expert in group deliberation and decision-making which respects both difference and unity

Vivek V Venkataraman

Silhouette of a man, a child, and a cow with large horns sitting on the ground at sunset.

essayProgress and modernity

In praise of magical thinking

Once we all had knowledge of how to heal ourselves using plants and animals. The future would be sweeter for renewing it

Anna Badkhen

Illustration of various human skulls and profiles with captions detailing different ethnic groups and regions, from a historical anthropological study.

essayHistory of ideas

Baffled by human diversity

Confused 17th-century Europeans argued that human groups were separately created, a precursor to racist thought today

Jacob Zellmer

Close-up of a hammer, metal pot, and three copper spheres on a stone surface, with a hand holding the hammer.

videoMaking

Trek to a remote Himalayan village where artisans craft teapots fit for kings

11 minutes

Open books arranged in a grid with pages featuring bright, hand-painted floral designs, around a drawing of a loaf of bread.

videoRituals and celebrations

Flirtation, negotiation and vodka – or how to couple up in 1950s rural Poland

5 minutes

Ancient cave painting depicting bison and other animals, primarily in red and black hues, on a textured stone surface that shows visible cracks.

essayArchaeology

Why make art in the dark?

New research transports us back to the shadowy firelight of ancient caves, imagining the minds and feelings of the artists

Izzy Wisher