Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

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Meet the Archaeologist Leading the Museum’s Repatriation Efforts

With more than 20 years of experience at the Smithsonian, Dorothy Lippert is championing a collaborative approach to repatriation

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Meet the Smithsonian Scientist Studying the Mysterious Mongolian Deer Stones

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2022 in Review: The Year’s Top Discoveries by Museum Researchers

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Viking Women and Black-Footed Ferrets Are Coming to the Museum This Holiday Season

A tan-colored skull and spine sticks out of a sandy surface. The jaws of the elongated skull are studded with sharp teeth that are angled at the viewer.

This November, Be Thankful for Specialty Spirits and Ancient Sea Monsters

A landscape shot featuring a cloudy gray sky, snow-covered mountains in the distance above a turquoise expanse of glacial ice on the horizon and a dark blue expanse of water in the foreground.

Community Archeology Helps Bridge Gap Between Science and Tradition

A tan woolly mammoth skeleton facing left bends its front legs and tilts its tusks towards the bottom of the frame.

Celebrate Fabulous Fossils and More Natural History Programs This October

6) Eroding Late Holocene Native American oyster midden at low tide in Fishing Bay, Maryland.JPG

When Was the World Our Oyster? We Asked the Anthropologist Investigating Sustainable Oyster Practices Through History

Close-up of a black and yellow hornet preserved on a pin

What Mummified Shrews and Giant Hornets Reveal About Biodiversity

A chimpanzee sits among leaves

Explore How Chimpanzees Perceive Gender and More Natural History Programs This April

A humpback whale breaches the surface of the ocean on a sunny day as three birds fly overhead.

10 Popular Scientific Discoveries From 2021

A pile of gourds spilling out of a tipped over container onto a brick floor with a bale of straw in the background.

Say Hello to the Scientist Harvesting Clues About Ancient Gourds and Maize

A group of seven squashes and an ear of corn on grass littered with fallen leaves.

How Ancient Humans Helped Bring Pumpkins to Your Thanksgiving Table

Landscapes have been managed by humans for thousands of years – some sustainably, others less so. The Martu people of Australia burn the grasses in continent’s Western Desert. The practice yields food, but also increases biodiversity in the area. (Rebecca Bliege Bird)

New Study Pushes Origins of Human-Driven Global Change Back Thousands of Years

These walrus ivory carvings were collected in the mid-1880s. They were featured in a catalogue for the exhibition

How Arctic Anthropologists are Expanding Narratives about the North

Sequencing entire genomes from ancient tissues helps researchers reveal the evolutionary and domestication histories of species. (Thomas Harper, The Pennsylvania State University)

How Ancient DNA Unearths Corn’s A-maize-ing History

Although pumpkins and other gourds have become staples at Thanksgiving, they were not the only original crops in the Americas. Other crops domesticated around the same time, like sumpweed, little barley and goosefoot, are now gone from today’s palates. (Smithsonian)

Our Thanksgiving Menu Has Lost a Few Crops

Scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History discovered all sorts of cool things in 2019 including the first North American medicinal leech (Macrobdella mimicus) in more than 40 years. (Anna Phillips, Smithsonian)

10 Popular Scientific Discoveries from 2019

With more disciplines working together, better use of big data, and more computer simulations and other quantitative approaches, archaeologists may be able to make meaningful predictions of the future. (Photo courtesy of Wendy Cegielski and Jay Etchings)

Convergence May Help Scientists Predict the Future

A team of Smithsonian scientists excavating the Hart Chalet site found a double tournois copper coin minted for French King louis XIII in 1634. In pristine condition, it would have looked similar to this 1638 double tournois coin. (Images courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Image composite by Anna Torres)

Some Archaeological Dating can be as Simple as Flipping a Coin

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Meet the Archaeologist Leading the Museum’s Repatriation Efforts

Embark on a Journey to the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Station

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