SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, or NAGPRA, is supposed to curb the illegal possession of ancestral Native American remains and cultural items. But a year after it was passed by the U.S. federal government, a significant African burial ground in New York City was uncovered. And there was zero legislation in place for its protection. Dr. Rachel Watkins shares the...

Archaeology helps reimagine a fuller range of experiences, including how people ate, innovated, and rebelled. In this episode, “slave cuisine” opens a window to honor the legacy of Black creativity, resistance, and community.  Dr. Peggy Brunache, a food historian and archaeologist, finds shellfish remains in a village of enslaved people, uncovering an untold story of how people found ways to resis...

The sky island of Dzil Nchaa Si'an is more than a mountain. It is a significant landmark in Arizona for Apache tribal members to collect medicinal plants, perform ceremonies, and connect with their ancestors. It is also a site of resistance against the development of an observatory informally known as the “Pope Scope,” for its ties to the Vatican.    (00:01:47) A history of competing interests ato...

In this episode, museum curators challenge the status quo and connect their ancestry to advance how history is told in cultural institutions. Mary Elliot brings listeners behind the scenes into the Slavery and Freedom exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. And Dr. Sven Haakanson helps re-create an angiaaq , which is like a kayak, at the Burke Museu...

For its practitioners, archaeology can feel like it is unearthing events deep in the past … until it doesn’t. What is the experience of researchers who discover their life stories are tied to an archaeological site? Dr. Kisha Supernant and Lenora McQueen share their journeys to the unmarked graves of First Nations and Métis peoples and African American burial grounds, respectively, and how their c...

For many, archaeology means digging up historical artifacts from beneath the ground. But to some, that framework is also violent and colonial. What would it mean to leave ancestors and belongings where they’re found? In this episode, Gabrielle Miller, a PhD student studying African Diaspora Archaeology at the University of Tulsa shares a story about excavations in St. Croix. And Dr. Ayana Flewelle...

Hosts Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali share how they found their way to archaeology and what it means to be Black and Indigenous archaeologists. From defying the status quo in a classroom to diving through sunken ships, Ora and Yoli bring listeners on a journey of reclaiming stories and reimagining history.   (00:00:10) How hosts Dr. Ora Merek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali met. (00:03:27) Wh...

We're launching a new season, asking what makes you … you? And who tells which stories and why? SAPIENS hosts Ora Marek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali explore stories of Black and Indigenous scholars as they transform the field of archeology and the stories that make us … us.   (00:00:02) Meet Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali. (00:00:51) How season four came to be. (00:01:53) Season four previ...

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell speaks with evolutionary geneticist Hugo Zeberg about his surprising discovery of a connection between Neanderthal DNA and a greater risk for severe COVID-19. Zeberg is also a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. Read the paper in Nature Zeberg co-authored announcing the discovery: “ The M...

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell speaks with Melanie Adams, the director of the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum (ACM), about #Moments of Resilience , the ACM’s effort to document and eventually tell African Americans’ stories about the times we're living through now. They also discuss the unique role of a community museum, the value of oral history, and the communities the ACM serves from its ho...

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with biological anthropologist Helen Fisher about her research on love, sex, and everything in between. Fisher is the author of six books, the chief scientific adviser for the online dating site Match.com , and a leading researcher on dating trends in America. In this episode, Fisher shares insights from a recent survey.  The New York Times piece Fisher references i...

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell talks with experimental archaeologist Farrell Monaco about her work re-creating ancient Roman bread and what it means to reconnect with bakers of the past. Farrell also offers some tips for pandemic-era bakers who want to take their new hobby to the next level.  For more from Farrell, her award-winning website is Tavola Mediterranea .  Read more about experimental archaeo...

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with  Agustín Fuentes , a professor of anthropology at Princeton University, to unpack his insight that the COVID-19 pandemic is a  biosocial  phenomenon. They also discuss  his recent suggestion  that the virus “is not the only hazard to human health and well-being” right now. Recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fuentes is a decorated ant...

The SAPIENS podcast will return in several months, and we want you to help us understand what it means to be human amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you have a question, thought, or idea about what it means to be human right now? Tweet at us @SAPIENS_org , message us on Facebook , or leave us a voicemail at 1-970-368-9730.

Everyone seems to have a story about the moment when the novel coronavirus pandemic stopped being an abstract problem “somewhere out there” and started being a very real and personal threat. In this episode of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell interrogate the problem with abstract threats with the help of anthropologists Hugh Gusterson and Kristin Hedges. In closing, Steve Na...

At some time in the future, the novel coronavirus pandemic will fade. What will this globally traumatic contagion leave in its wake? In this episode of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell keep an eye on the future while looking to the past for answers: In the 14th century, the Black Death killed as much as one-third of the population of Europe, but it also sparked new ideas tha...

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon interviews Laurence Ralph, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. Ralph is also a co-director of Princeton’s Center on Transnational Policing , the editor of Current Anthropology , and the author of the new book The Torture Letters: Reckoning With Police Violence , which exposes the Chicago Police Department’s history of torturing black men and women, and doc...

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell interviews Elic Weitzel, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Connecticut, about his recent article for SAPIENS that considers how the global pandemic may impact climate change—for better or for worse. Weitzel is currently working on his dissertation on the environmental effects of the Black Death on 14th-century Eurasia and the depopulation of Native...

With the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, the SAPIENS podcast is going viral. In this first episode of season 3, SAPIENS hosts Chip Colwell and Jen Shannon revisit  a story about preppers from our first season. Jen calls Chad Huddleston, one of the anthropologists featured on that show, to find out how he and the preppers he studies are handling the COVID-19 crisis. In closing, Chip reaches ou...

In this season 2 finale of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon, Chip Colwell, and Esteban Gómez field questions from listeners on Twitter and at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science about what it means to be human. They address human origins and self-awareness, discrimination, social media, and more! You can follow all of our expert guests on Twitter: Augustin Fuentes at the University of...

Until very recently, Colin Turnbull was the only anthropologist who had lived and studied with both the Mbuti people of the Congo region and the Ik of Uganda. Because of his writings, one community became known for its egalitarianism and the other for its selfishness. His observations of the Ik in particular, as “inhuman” and “inhospitable,” led to them being dubbed as “the loveless people.” Then...

Anthropologist Elisa Sobo never wanted to study the issue of vaccination. The topic was too fraught, she says, and she didn't want to touch it. But then she initiated a children’s health study at a school in California. Today her work on vaccine hesitancy offers insights into how those on opposing sides might better understand each other and work through this highly controversial issue. For more,...

What is it about certain musical traditions that cause them to take root in communities far away from where they originated? Anthropologist Kristina Jacobsen leads SAPIENS hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell on a musical journey into the U.S. Southwest to understand the phenomenon that is Navajo country music. In addition to authoring the book The Sound of Navajo Country: Music, Language, and Diné...

How do language, biology, and culture shape an individual’s experience of color? A journalist investigates the anthropological debate about whether color is a human universal.  Remember the meme #TheDress ? Was it white and gold, or blue and black? With the help of Nicola Jones, a freelance science journalist who writes for Nature and SAPIENS, SAPIENS host Jen Shannon explores the question of colo...

Anthropologist Sabine Hyland attempts to uncover the secrets held in twisted and colored Andean cords called khipus. Thanks to the collaborative approach of anthropologist Sabine Hyland and local communities, outsiders are finally coming to understand what these khipus mean—for the people of the Andes and for the rest of us. Sabine Hyland is a professor of anthropology at the University of St. And...