Sapiens anthropology
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Best of SAPIENS 2025
In SAPIENS’ final year of publishing new stories, the magazine honors 10 standout contributions that carried anthropology into the hearts and minds of readers worldwide.
✽
As SAPIENS publishes its final stories, we reflect with gratitude on the remarkable community of anthropologists, journalists, poets, and readers who have made the magazine a home for exploring humanity in all its complexity. In 2025, our contributors wrote about connection and care, loss and return, the voices and conditions
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Unearthing What Archaeologists Can and Cannot Know
An archaeologist studying 1,000-year-old dog burials reflects on the need for imagination in archaeology.
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WITH STEADY HANDS, a crouching archaeologist brushes away centuries of soil, revealing the curved edge of a human skull. As they excavate deeper, the slender bones of a dog emerge. The archaeologist pauses, scanning the stillness of this shared grave.
The bones offer the illusion of a story—a villager and his beloved pet, a warrior with her guard dog, or a dog deposited as a spiritual guid
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0
Listening Against the Threshold of Pain
SAPIENS’ 2025 poet-in-residence situates her listening in Kashmir and Germany during and after her fieldwork, contextualizing her contributions to SAPIENS this year.
If you missed Uzma Falak’s previous SAPIENS poems, you can find them here.
✽
Anatomy of Silence
In the city of
lashed tongues
gashed throats
bleeding ears
LED screens and projectors
wired to sound amplifiers
blare the Minister of Stolen Time’s
Independence Day speech
across empty streets
lashed tongues
gashed throats
bleedin
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0
The Tomb That Told of a Women’s Kingdom
An archaeologist unspools the story of a female leader buried over 1,000 years ago on the Tibetan Plateau.
A TOMB IN THE HIGHLANDS
In 2005, a truck rumbled down a dirt road in western Tibet, its heavy wheels collapsing ground as it passed. When monks came to clear the debris, they found fragments of a wooden coffin, human bones, and traces of silk.
The accident revealed a tomb beneath the road and a doorway into a forgotten world.
Nearly a decade later, archaeologists returned to excavate the si
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0
In Malaysia, Muslim Trans Women Find Their Own Paths
An anthropologist traces how transgender women navigate state-sponsored religious programs aimed at “rehabilitating” LGBTQ+ Muslims.
✽
Dora and I walked through the quiet nighttime streets of Chow Kit, a downtown neighborhood in Kuala Lumpur. (All names have been changed to protect people’s privacy. ) Pungent food smells mingled with the sweet scent of fruit and flowers from a nearby market. Abandoned rainbow-colored confetti shivering under the dim, yellowish streetlights reminded us of some c
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In Japan, the Philosophical Stance Against Having Children
An anthropologist delves beyond simplistic portrayals of the anti-natalist movement to understand what motivates its adherents.
✽
Growing up in the atheistic milieu of China’s Cultural Revolution, my dad has always believed that death is the end. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when people around him began dying, he hired a lawyer and planned for his own life’s conclusion.
When I finally saw him after three years of the pandemic, my dad had grown older, balder, and more impatient. He still thinks
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0
Do Africa’s Mass Animal Migrations Extend Into Deep Time?
Isotopes in fossil teeth suggest ancient animals traveled less than once thought—making researchers rethink past human societies and future conservation.
✽
Hundreds of hooves thunder, announcing the herd’s approach. A cloud of dust rolls closer. The low mooing of wildebeest is within earshot.
Every year, when the seasons change in Eastern Africa, millions of large herbivores journey to find food and water. Along the way, zebras, gazelles, elephants, and other animal icons evade predators, cross
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0
Padi Nyawa Urang
A poet and aspiring anthropologist in Indonesia reflects on the values reflected in rice cultivation in a traditional village in Lebak, Banten, Indonesia.
✽
I WROTE “PADI NYAWA URANG,” which translates as “Rice Is Our Lifeblood,” to reflect on a weeklong stay for a school program at a traditional village in Lebak, Banten, Indonesia. It was a 9-hour trip from my hometown, Bandung. We alternated between bus rides and finally a minibus with our rucksacks tied on the vehicle roof guarded only with r
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Connections and Conflicts With Seals in a Scottish Archipelago
An environmental anthropologist investigates deep-time, mythical, and contemporary relations between seals and Orkney Islanders.
SEAL SONG
One gray afternoon, I saw a seal lying on a rock, eyes half-closed, head tilted toward the wind. It made a low, melodic sound—somewhere between a sigh and a song.
Was it calling out? Mourning? Remembering?
Every now and then, I spot the mammals bobbing in the surf or lounging along the shores of Orkney, a Scottish archipelago, north of the mainland. Their pre
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0
Sounding the Border
An anthropologist-poet listens to echoes of laughter and other sounds of crossings in Kashmir.
In the house once occupied by soldiers
laughter echoes
as three women sing
Yamberzal sutures a song
Banafsha, her daughter, gathers a distich
and urges her aunt, Sombul, to carry it on ( Names of the interlocutors have been changed to respect their anonymity.)
Outside, dark enfolds the mountains
thousands of stars gather in clandestine assemblages
a brook gushes inconsolably
bright yellow flowers
murm
0
0
Best of SAPIENS 2025
In SAPIENS’ final year of publishing new stories, the magazine honors 10 standout contributions that carried anthropology into the hearts and minds of readers worldwide.
✽
As SAPIENS publishes its final stories, we reflect with gratitude on the remarkable community of anthropologists, journalists, poets, and readers who have made the magazine a home for exploring humanity in all its complexity. In 2025, our contributors wrote about connection and care, loss and return, the voices and conditions
0
0 👁
Unearthing What Archaeologists Can and Cannot Know
An archaeologist studying 1,000-year-old dog burials reflects on the need for imagination in archaeology.
✽
WITH STEADY HANDS, a crouching archaeologist brushes away centuries of soil, revealing the curved edge of a human skull. As they excavate deeper, the slender bones of a dog emerge. The archaeologist pauses, scanning the stillness of this shared grave.
The bones offer the illusion of a story—a villager and his beloved pet, a warrior with her guard dog, or a dog deposited as a spiritual guid
0
0 👁
Listening Against the Threshold of Pain
SAPIENS’ 2025 poet-in-residence situates her listening in Kashmir and Germany during and after her fieldwork, contextualizing her contributions to SAPIENS this year.
If you missed Uzma Falak’s previous SAPIENS poems, you can find them here.
✽
Anatomy of Silence
In the city of
lashed tongues
gashed throats
bleeding ears
LED screens and projectors
wired to sound amplifiers
blare the Minister of Stolen Time’s
Independence Day speech
across empty streets
lashed tongues
gashed throats
bleedin
0
0 👁
The Tomb That Told of a Women’s Kingdom
An archaeologist unspools the story of a female leader buried over 1,000 years ago on the Tibetan Plateau.
A TOMB IN THE HIGHLANDS
In 2005, a truck rumbled down a dirt road in western Tibet, its heavy wheels collapsing ground as it passed. When monks came to clear the debris, they found fragments of a wooden coffin, human bones, and traces of silk.
The accident revealed a tomb beneath the road and a doorway into a forgotten world.
Nearly a decade later, archaeologists returned to excavate the si
0
0 👁
In Malaysia, Muslim Trans Women Find Their Own Paths
An anthropologist traces how transgender women navigate state-sponsored religious programs aimed at “rehabilitating” LGBTQ+ Muslims.
✽
Dora and I walked through the quiet nighttime streets of Chow Kit, a downtown neighborhood in Kuala Lumpur. (All names have been changed to protect people’s privacy. ) Pungent food smells mingled with the sweet scent of fruit and flowers from a nearby market. Abandoned rainbow-colored confetti shivering under the dim, yellowish streetlights reminded us of some c
0
0 👁
In Japan, the Philosophical Stance Against Having Children
An anthropologist delves beyond simplistic portrayals of the anti-natalist movement to understand what motivates its adherents.
✽
Growing up in the atheistic milieu of China’s Cultural Revolution, my dad has always believed that death is the end. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when people around him began dying, he hired a lawyer and planned for his own life’s conclusion.
When I finally saw him after three years of the pandemic, my dad had grown older, balder, and more impatient. He still thinks
0
0 👁
Do Africa’s Mass Animal Migrations Extend Into Deep Time?
Isotopes in fossil teeth suggest ancient animals traveled less than once thought—making researchers rethink past human societies and future conservation.
✽
Hundreds of hooves thunder, announcing the herd’s approach. A cloud of dust rolls closer. The low mooing of wildebeest is within earshot.
Every year, when the seasons change in Eastern Africa, millions of large herbivores journey to find food and water. Along the way, zebras, gazelles, elephants, and other animal icons evade predators, cross
0
0 👁
Padi Nyawa Urang
A poet and aspiring anthropologist in Indonesia reflects on the values reflected in rice cultivation in a traditional village in Lebak, Banten, Indonesia.
✽
I WROTE “PADI NYAWA URANG,” which translates as “Rice Is Our Lifeblood,” to reflect on a weeklong stay for a school program at a traditional village in Lebak, Banten, Indonesia. It was a 9-hour trip from my hometown, Bandung. We alternated between bus rides and finally a minibus with our rucksacks tied on the vehicle roof guarded only with r
0
0 👁
Connections and Conflicts With Seals in a Scottish Archipelago
An environmental anthropologist investigates deep-time, mythical, and contemporary relations between seals and Orkney Islanders.
SEAL SONG
One gray afternoon, I saw a seal lying on a rock, eyes half-closed, head tilted toward the wind. It made a low, melodic sound—somewhere between a sigh and a song.
Was it calling out? Mourning? Remembering?
Every now and then, I spot the mammals bobbing in the surf or lounging along the shores of Orkney, a Scottish archipelago, north of the mainland. Their pre
0
0 👁
Sounding the Border
An anthropologist-poet listens to echoes of laughter and other sounds of crossings in Kashmir.
In the house once occupied by soldiers
laughter echoes
as three women sing
Yamberzal sutures a song
Banafsha, her daughter, gathers a distich
and urges her aunt, Sombul, to carry it on ( Names of the interlocutors have been changed to respect their anonymity.)
Outside, dark enfolds the mountains
thousands of stars gather in clandestine assemblages
a brook gushes inconsolably
bright yellow flowers
murm
0
0 👁
Best of SAPIENS 2025
In SAPIENS’ final year of publishing new stories, the magazine honors 10 standout contributions that carried anthropology into the…
💬 0
👁 0
Unearthing What Archaeologists Can and Cannot Know
SAPIENS · Dec 16, 2025
💬 0
👁 0
Listening Against the Threshold of Pain
SAPIENS · Dec 15, 2025
💬 0
👁 0
The Tomb That Told of a Women’s Kingdom
SAPIENS · Dec 11, 2025
💬 0
👁 0

In Malaysia, Muslim Trans Women Find Their Own Paths
SAPIENS · Dec 9, 2025

In Japan, the Philosophical Stance Against Having Children
SAPIENS · Dec 2, 2025

Do Africa’s Mass Animal Migrations Extend Into Deep Time?
SAPIENS · Nov 25, 2025
Padi Nyawa Urang
SAPIENS · Nov 24, 2025
Connections and Conflicts With Seals in a Scottish Archipelago
An environmental anthropologist investigates deep-time, mythical, and contemporary relations between seals and Orkney Islanders.
S…
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👁 0
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