The Anthropology of the Office Email
Researchers learn a lot from studying office workers' email. But the question remains: do they learn more about the people, or about the medium itself?
Megafauna Memories?
Some folklorists have hypothesized that the mythical beasts and monsters of legend were actually inspired by shadowy collective memories of megafauna.
Bonnie Nardi
Welcome to Ask a Professor, our series that offers an insider’s view of life in academia. This month we interviewed Bonnie Nardi.
Lise Dobrin and Language Documentation in Papua New Guinea
Q&A: Lise Dobrin, Associate Professor & Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics at the University of Virginia's Department of Anthropology.
To Kill a Maltese Bird
The Mediterranean island nation of Malta is the scene of migratory bird massacres twice a year. Why do they continue to do it?
What We Saw Under the Microscope’s Lens
The lens, a tool technology that helps make the invisible world visible, brought a revolutionary perspective to our descriptions of nature.
An Object History of the Persian Carpet
The famous Persian carpet, woven by female artisans in southwestern Iran, may be going extinct. Its story can be told in spindles and whorls.
The Sticky History of Adhesives
Our Pleistocene ancestors in southern Africa made and used glue-like adhesives as early as the Middle Stone Age.
Inside the Alchemist’s Workshop
What tools would an alchemist use in the quest to transmute other elements into gold?
Complexity in Simplicity: The Three Technologies Behind Ceramics
More than two thousand years ago, the Mayans of eastern Guatemala used ceramic teapots to pour themselves hot ...