We're (Still) Going Viral

At the Heart of It All

For its practitioners, archaeology can feel like it is unearthing events deep in the past … until it doesn’t. What is the experience of...

Redrawing Boundaries

For many, archaeology means digging up historical artifacts from beneath the ground. But to some, that framework is also violent and...

Guided by the Past

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...

Our Past is the Future

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...

A Startling Link Between Neanderthals and COVID-19

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell speaks with evolutionary geneticist Hugo Zeberg about his surprising discovery of a connection between...

Moments of Resilience Amid a Pandemic

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell speaks with Melanie Adams, the director of the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum (ACM), about #Moments...

Is the Pandemic Slowing Down Love?

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with biological anthropologist Helen Fisher about her research on love, sex, and everything in between....

When at Home, Bake as the Romans Baked

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell talks with experimental archaeologist Farrell Monaco about her work re-creating ancient Roman bread and what it...

A Vaccine Will Not Be Enough

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with Agustín Fuentes, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University, to unpack his insight that the...

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...

The Problem With Abstract Threats

Everyone seems to have a story about the moment when the novel coronavirus pandemic stopped being an abstract problem “somewhere out...

What Pandemics Leave Behind

At some time in the future, the novel coronavirus pandemic will fade. What will this globally traumatic contagion leave in its wake? In this...

Police Violence and the Pandemic

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon interviews Laurence Ralph, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. Ralph is also a co-director of...

Could the Coronavirus Pandemic Be Good for the Environment?

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell interviews Elic Weitzel, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Connecticut, about his recent...

Preppers and the Pandemic

With the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, the SAPIENS podcast is going viral. In this first episode of season 3, SAPIENS hosts Chip...

What Does it Mean to be Human? Your Questions, Answered

In this season 2 finale of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon, Chip Colwell, and Esteban Gómez field questions from listeners on...

Does Generosity Come Naturally?

Until very recently, Colin Turnbull was the only anthropologist who had lived and studied with both the Mbuti people of the Congo region and...

How Belonging Shapes the Vaccination Crisis

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...

The Deep Roots of Navajo Country Music

What is it about certain musical traditions that cause them to take root in communities far away from where they originated? Anthropologist...

Are Colors Universal?

How do language, biology, and culture shape an individual’s experience of color? A journalist investigates the anthropological debate...