Anthropology

I’m an anthropologist and rarely have I seen such a harmful mix of inaccuracies and stereotypes about Indigenous people.

Evolution uses all its tricks to make sure we procreate. But love in humans is a many-splendored thing.

How supernatural beliefs allowed societies to bond and spread.

Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and the relationship that changed social science.

Genetic analysis reveals a complex tale of migrations and cross-species trysts in our human past

Questions and answers about the science of skin color.

The results of galactic colonization models are a mixed bag for SETI optimists.

New fossil evidence shows sophisticated thought began earlier than we thought.

In an experiment designed to test whether a tool forged by the cold from human waste could be used to kill a dog, surely the frozen implements created in the lab ought to have been tested on the skin of a dog.Photograph by K.H.Trudeau / Shutterstock When, some weeks ago, I was first contacted by […]

The removal of cultural emblems is not the erasure of history but part of it.

If it is in fact accurate to think of witch trial beliefs as viruses, maybe it would be helpful to study their spread the way scientists study the spread of viruses: using an epidemiological model.“The Witch, No. 1” (1892) by Joseph E. Baker / Wikicommons It’s hard to make sense of witch hunts. Many people […]

Anna Badkhen tells us about the experiences that led to her Nautilus feature.

Sacred beliefs likely arose out of prehistoric bonding and rituals.

How supernatural beliefs allowed societies to bond and spread.

Archaeologist Ticia Verveer recently posted a thread on Twitter showing that customer complaints go way back. And I mean way back. Verveer referred to a letter inscribed on a 3,700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet. In the letter, Verveer writes, “The copper merchant Nanni details at length his anger at a sour deal, and his dissatisfaction with […]

The surprising anthropology of group identity.

Does their pervasiveness tell us something important about evolution and human behavior?

Robots and lasers are uncovering an ancient, sacred geography.

Warriors among the Kwara’ae, a collection of tribal communities indigenous to the Solomon Islands, sacrificed pigs before battle. The tradition granted the combatants, so the belief went, aid from heroic ancestral spirits—like the mighty A’orama, a fierce fighter in Kwara’ae folklore. For every man who prepared to shed blood, a hog met its end.1 Any […]

  In August 2013, Finland’s young nuclear professionals, under 35 years old, met up for the Summer Games in Mikkeli municipality, put on by the Finnish Nuclear Society’s Young Generation Group. Launched in 1998, the organization helps people interested in nuclear fields network. As usual, the plan was to escape office life, eat, drink, use […]

What we don’t tell our children.

How the Gold Rush and Fossil Rush came together.

Just as Paleo dieters assume a mismatch between human biology and the food culture of the postindustrial West, Paleo parents believe that modern parenting habits don’t support healthy child development.Photograph by H. Armstrong Roberts / ClassicStock Every evening as the sun sets, Robb Wolf begins his nightly ritual: While his two daughters play, he slowly […]

Launch Ritual: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a tradition of eating peanuts during big, risky spacecraft events, such as Mars rover landings. Photograph by Kevin Baird / Flickr For the last two years of his baseball career, George Gmelch didn’t eat pancakes. Playing in the Detroit Tigers minor league system in the 1960s, two disappointing […]

What is it good for?

New fossil evidence shows sophisticated thought began earlier than we thought.

Sports don’t survive their cultures of origin if they resist modern measurement.

How the chili pepper got to China.

The paleoanthropologist makes no apologies for going his own way.

Lee Berger has a knack for finding fossils his own way.

When I was invited to drum in Ghana, I gladly accepted. Then something went wrong.

When I was invited to drum in Ghana, I gladly accepted. Then something went wrong.

Warriors among the Kwara’ae, a collection of tribal communities indigenous to the Solomon Islands, sacrificed pigs before battle. The tradition granted the combatants, so the belief went, aid from heroic ancestral spirits—like the mighty A’orama, a fierce fighter in Kwara’ae folklore. For every man who prepared to shed blood, a hog met its end.1 Any […]

Every evening as the sun sets, Robb Wolf begins his nightly ritual: While his two daughters play, he slowly dims the lights, just a few lumens every 20 to 30 minutes, until the house, in Reno, Nevada, is dark. The family is asleep before 8 p.m. and awake before dawn, as Wolf imagines our ancestors […]

What you should know about your body’s biggest organ.

Why do so many corpses found in Europe’s peat bogs show signs of violent death?

When anthropologist Alyssa Crittenden began studying the Hadza people of Tanzania 10 years ago, she was surprised to see an 8-year-old girl head out to forage for golden kongolobe berries with her 1-year-old niece swaddled snugly on her back. The behavior starkly contrasted Crittenden’s own experience growing up in the United States, where mothers often […]

At long-term nuclear repositories in Finland and Sweden, waste will be ensconced in cast-iron inserts (right), which are then placed in copper canisters (left).Posiva Oy This is part 2 of Vincent Ialenti’s report on how how to think about nuclear waste in the environment over the very long term. Also see part 1, which ran […]

On June 1, 1676 the Battle of Öland was raging, as the Swedish navy grappled with a Danish-Dutch fleet for control of the southern rim of the Baltic Sea. Amid bad weather, Kronan—Sweden’s naval flagship in the region and one of the largest warships of its kind at the time—made a sudden left turn. Its […]

I felt the impact of an attack by the terrorist group. So why didn’t my research data?

I felt the impact of an attack by the terrorist group. So why didn’t my research data?

The Nebra Sky Disk photographed in Basel, Switzerland, in 2006Dbachmann via Wikipedia   Henry Westphal is tired. It’s July 4, 1999, a Sunday. He and a friend are climbing the Mittelberg or “Central Hill,” a small mountain near Nebra, in central Germany. Both men know of ancient ruins located here. Equipped with two metal detectors, […]

Anna Badkhen tells us about the experiences that led to her Nautilus feature.

When science and fear collide, a supernatural story thrives.

What if our ancient relatives did “human” better?

What if our ancient relatives did “human” better?

Traditional performers at the 2007 Mt. Hagen Cultural Show in Papua New GuineaIan @ ThePaperboy When people think of religions, they tend to turn to of the big five: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Although these are the most popular religions in the world, they are a minuscule sample of the thousands of religions […]

Kim Stanley Robinson imagines our future.

When science and fear collide, a supernatural story thrives.

For Aboriginal cultures, light is a physical and spiritual guide.

How Paleolithic artists used fire to set the world’s oldest art in motion.

Taking lessons from the rise and fall of divinity in online games.

A search for humankind’s mark on the Earth.

Our picture of man’s early home has been skewed by modern preconceptions.

Early man chose pints over pastry. Wouldn’t you?

When did the savanna give way to the crash pad?

Our picture of man’s early home has been skewed by modern preconceptions.

Our picture of man’s early home has been skewed by modern preconceptions.

We think that fame is deserved. We are wrong.

We think that fame is deserved. We are wrong.

A look back at a career spent looking back.

Today Nautilus launched its second issue, “Uncertainty: A new look at an indeterminate world.” For now we’ve just opened up the first chapter, “Uncertainty in Nature,” with looks at how uncertainty is embedded in math, particles of matter, our genomes, and possibly space-time itself. The rest of the issue will emerge over the course of […]

Nautilus readers vote on what they think makes humans special.

I recently discovered that my 10-times-great-grandfather bought a good chunk of Brooklyn from the Lenape Indians. He was one of the first Dutch landowners on this continent, a man who had run a laundry bleaching business in Holland but had traveled under the auspices of the Dutch West India Company to become a farmer in […]

Changing the human body, one invention at a time.

Where we part ways with our ape cousins.

Empathy, morality, community, culture—apes can have it all!