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.
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 ...
We Didn’t Start the Fire (Neanderthals Did)
Fire was once thought to be a strictly human technology, but new discoveries show that Neanderthals could wield it.