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Best of SAPIENS 2025
In SAPIENS’ final year of publishing new stories, the magazine honors 10 standout contributions that carried anthropology into the hearts and minds of readers worldwide. ✽ As SAPIENS publishes its...
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Unearthing What Archaeologists Can and Cannot Know
An archaeologist studying 1,000-year-old dog burials reflects on the need for imagination in archaeology. ✽ WITH STEADY HANDS, a crouching archaeologist brushes away centuries of soil, revealing the...
View ArticleListening Against the Threshold of Pain
SAPIENS’ 2025 poet-in-residence situates her listening in Kashmir and Germany during and after her fieldwork, contextualizing her contributions to SAPIENS this year. If you missed Uzma Falak’s previous...
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The Tomb That Told of a Women’s Kingdom
An archaeologist unspools the story of a female leader buried over 1,000 years ago on the Tibetan Plateau. A TOMB IN THE HIGHLANDS In 2005, a truck rumbled down a dirt road in western Tibet, its heavy...
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In Malaysia, Muslim Trans Women Find Their Own Paths
An anthropologist traces how transgender women navigate state-sponsored religious programs aimed at “rehabilitating” LGBTQ+ Muslims. ✽ Dora and I walked through the quiet nighttime streets of Chow Kit,...
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In Japan, the Philosophical Stance Against Having Children
An anthropologist delves beyond simplistic portrayals of the anti-natalist movement to understand what motivates its adherents. ✽ Growing up in the atheistic milieu of China’s Cultural Revolution, my...
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Do Africa’s Mass Animal Migrations Extend Into Deep Time?
Isotopes in fossil teeth suggest ancient animals traveled less than once thought—making researchers rethink past human societies and future conservation. ✽ Hundreds of hooves thunder, announcing the...
View ArticlePadi Nyawa Urang
A poet and aspiring anthropologist in Indonesia reflects on the values reflected in rice cultivation in a traditional village in Lebak, Banten, Indonesia. ✽ I WROTE “PADI NYAWA URANG,” which translates...
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Connections and Conflicts With Seals in a Scottish Archipelago
An environmental anthropologist investigates deep-time, mythical, and contemporary relations between seals and Orkney Islanders. SEAL SONG One gray afternoon, I saw a seal lying on a rock, eyes...
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Sounding the Border
An anthropologist-poet listens to echoes of laughter and other sounds of crossings in Kashmir. In the house once occupied by soldiers laughter echoes as three women sing Yamberzal sutures a song...
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The Sacred Heartbeat at Houston Pride
An anthropologist participates in the Houston Pride Parade, offering dance, music, and prayer with others to counter intensifying oppression faced by queer and Latine communities. ✽ Along Allen...
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The Politics of Mourning After Itaewon
After the deadly 2022 Itaewon crowd crush, South Korea faced a failure of prevention—and mourning. A group of anthropologists explores how grief was managed, marginalized, and ultimately erased,...
View ArticleDreamscapes of Refusal: A Chorus
SAPIENS poet-in-residence for 2025 listens to a chorus of dreams in her field recordings from Kashmir. ✽ “Dreaming has a share in history.” —Walter Benjamin, Dream Kitsch 1 A green scarf speckled...
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The Cost of Cutting Anthropology Out of U.S. National Parks
A former National Park Service anthropologist reflects on the vital role of cultural anthropology to the agency’s mission—and what might be lost if the Trump administration’s cuts to federal funding...
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Ukrainian Volunteers Weave Camouflage and Care
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukrainians have been gathering to support the war effort by creating camouflage nets for fighters on the frontlines. ✽ On a hot day in late July, I walk up...
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When Women Say “Ta-Ta” to Ta-Tas
An anthropologist fighting cancer navigates the social pressure to get breast reconstruction after a mastectomy. ✽ “I’ve decided to go flat.” I said these words aloud for the first time to my surgeon....
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In Human Origins Research, Communities Are the Missing Link
A paleoanthropologist reflects on relationships between researchers and communities living around sites relevant to human evolution. IN THE BEGINNING In 1887, Eugene Dubois, a Dutch anatomist, embarked...
View ArticleFive Questions for Anand Pandian
In this live discussion, anthropologist Anand Pandian shares insights from his timely new book, Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down. ✽ What keeps...
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Cold-Water Swimming Brings New Life to Aging Bodies
A researcher dips into life at a community pool in Cambridge, England, to find out why so many people over 60 are finding joy and pleasure in a cold-water swim. ✽ I UNDRESS QUICKLY. No point in...
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Surveillance and Suspicion From the Margins
A Venezuelan anthropologist reflects on distrust he felt from residents of informal settlements in Santiago, Chile—and how his experiences track global trends of fearing outsiders. ✽ I knocked on...
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