Nov 30 Lucy, our famous ancestor, was built for tree-dwelling By Kristin Hugo Bone scans of Lucy, our ever popular human ancestor, suggest early hominins may have spent millions of years “monkeying around” in trees. Continue reading
Nov 17 Column: How colors get their names By Claire Bowern, The Conversation A Yale linguist explains how many colors exist in your language’s rainbow. Continue reading
Jul 13 Culture, not biology, decides the difference between music and noise By Lora Strum A new study shows only cultures previously exposed to western music form opinions on consonance and dissonance, an element of music theory that establishes consonant chords as more aurally pleasing… Continue reading
Jun 18 Geneticists crack the 20-year mystery of the Kennewick Man skeleton By Nsikan Akpan Will U.S. Army Corps of Engineers return the Kennewick Man's remains now that they've been found to be closely related to Native Americans?… Continue reading
Dec 22 The Indiana Jones of collapsed cultures: Our Western civilization itself is a bubble By Edward Fischer Bill Gates may think we're living in the greatest time in history. But the same elements of our society that have allowed Western civilization to succeed also spell its impending collapse. Anthropologist Ted Fischer interviews fellow Vanderbilt anthropologist Arthur Demarest… Continue reading
Oct 14 Bringing safer burial rituals to Ebola outbreak countries By Larisa Epatko A French anthropologist is helping the World Health Organization come up with safer burial practices, while trying to maintain tradition, in Ebola-ridden West African countries. Continue reading
Nov 28 Thanksgiving: The Art of the Gift in the Era of the Market Lewis Hyde, author of "The Gift," explores the practice of gift-giving at the first Thanksgiving. Above, a depiction of early settlers of the Plymouth Colony sharing a harvest Thanksgiving meal with members of the local Wampanoag tribe at the Plimoth… Continue reading
Dec 10 Watch Anthology Traces Rap’s Lyrical Journey, Poetic Roots Is rap music a form of lyric poetry? A new anthology, published by Yale University Press, makes the case. Jeffrey Brown reports. Continue watching
Nov 03 Watch How the Climate Changed Human Evolution NOVA explores the issue of climate change as it relates to human origins in part one of a three part series on evolution. Continue watching