Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Anthropology

None

Today’s Great Science Quote

None

Passing Notes

Zhou Daguan, part of a group of diplomats from China that lived in Angkor from 1296 to 1297, recorded his thoughts on the area

Saffron-robed monks enter the Bayon, which stands in the precise center of the King Jayavarman VII's temple city of Angkor Thom.

Jewel of the Jungle

Traveling through Cambodia, our writer details the history and archaeology of Angkor’s ancient temples

Julius Caesar, the emperors Augustus and Tiberius and the statesman-philosopher Cicero all had homes in Stabiae.

Ancient Rome’s Forgotten Paradise

Stabiae’s seaside villas will soon be resurrected in one of the largest archaeological projects in Europe since World War II

The chimp with the most human-like gait and body type walked upright more efficiently than he knuckle-walked—a finding that study co-author Herman Pontzer calls a snapshot of how this evolution may have taken place. (This composite photograph pays homage to the iconic Evolution of Man.)

Walk This Way

Humans’ two-legged gait evolved to save energy, new research says

None

Polynesians Beat Europeans to the “New World”

The site covers some 80,000 acres. UNESCO named it a World Heritage Site in 1983.

Saving Machu Picchu

Will the opening of a bridge give new life to the surrounding community or further encroach upon the World Heritage Site?

None

Roy Richard Grinker

His new book offers a scholar’s— and father’s— perspective on autism

Outer slope of the Rano Raraku volcano, the quarry of the Moais with many uncompleted statues.

The Mystery of Easter Island

New findings rekindle old debates about when the first people arrived and why their civilization collapsed

Sometime after 1938, a forger, perhaps oblivious to the document's historic nature, tried to boost its value by painting Byzantine-style illuminations on a few of its pages.

Reading Between the Lines

Scientists with high-tech tools are deciphering lost writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes

None

Planet — well, Forest — of the Apes

Damon Conklin uses the body, from head to feet, as his canvas.

Today’s Tattoos

Making your mark

The new removable inks are made from safe pigments and trapped in nano-sized, harmless polymer shells.

The Tattoo Eraser

A new type of body art ink promises freedom from forever

Anthropologists recently found fossils of Paranthropus robustus, also called robust australopithecines, in an excavation site in South Africa. Paranthropus coexisted with human ancestors Homo habilis and Homo erectus as recently as 1.5 million years ago. Some anthropologists had believed that Paranthropus' limited diet caused its extinction, but new evidence from the fossils suggests that Paranthropus had a varied diet that included both hard and soft plants as well as herbivores.

Teeth Tales

Fossils tell a new story about the diversity of hominid diets

Sleeping with Cannibals

Our intrepid reporter gets up close and personal with New Guinea natives who say they still eat their fellow tribesmen

Lepeadon, the "fierce man" of the Letin clan.

Raffaele Among the Korowai

Paul Raffaele describes his adventures (and misadventures) in Indonesian New Guinea, reporting on the Korowai

None

Students of the Game

When the Aztec and Maya played it 500 to 1,000 years ago, the losers sometimes lost their heads—literally

Villagers on the island of Tanna dance in John Frum's honor each February 15. Clan leaders first saw their Yankee Messiah in the late 1930s. He later appeared to them during WWII, dressed in white like the unidentified navy seaman.

In John They Trust

South Pacific villagers worship a mysterious American they call John Frum - believing he’ll one day shower their remote island with riches

35 Who Made a Difference: Douglas Owsley

Dead people tell no tales—but their bones do, when he examines them

On the lookout for enemies, a warrior named Ta'van leads a patrol through the jungle. Several hundred Indians—some never seen by outsiders—live in the Amazon's Javari Valley.

Out of Time

The volatile Korubo of the Amazon still live in almost total isolation. Indian tracker Sydney Possuelo is trying to keep their world intact

Page 16 of 17