Farmers have less leisure time than hunter-gatherers, study suggests
Hunter-gatherers in the Philippines who convert to farming work around ten hours a week longer than their forager neighbours, a new study suggests, complicating the idea that agriculture represents progress. The research also shows that the adoption of agriculture impacts most on the lives of women.
May 21, 2019 • ~5 min
The cultural significance of carbon-storing peatlands to rural communities
A group of UK and Peruvian researchers have carried out the first detailed study of how rural communities interact with peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon, a landscape that is one of the world’s largest stores of carbon.
May 21, 2019 • ~6 min
Author examines the strange relationship between good and evil
Richard Wrangham’s new book examines the strange relationship between good and evil.
Jan. 28, 2019 • ~13 min
Author examines the strange relationship between good and evil
Richard Wrangham’s new book examines the strange relationship between good and evil.
Jan. 28, 2019 • ~13 min
Study suggests shamans acted as the first professional class in human society
A paper published earlier this year argues that shamanism develops as specialists compete to provide magical services to people in their communities, and the outcome is a set of traditions that hacks people’s psychological biases to convince them that they can control the uncertain.
Dec. 10, 2018 • ~7 min
Family’s photos from ’50s capture fading way of life in Kalahari Desert
Eight expeditions to the Kalahari Desert by a Cambridge family in the 1950s yielded more than 40,000 photographs that captured hunter-gatherer cultures on the verge of disappearing. Many of the photos are now on view at Harvard’s Peabody Museum in a new exhibit, “Kalahari Perspectives: Anthropology, Photography, and the Marshall Family.”
Oct. 1, 2018 • ~9 min
Discovering hidden stories in the Flint water crisis | MIT News
Graduate student Elena Sobrino looks beyond the headlines to study interactions between the city’s people and institutions.
June 24, 2018 • ~8 min
Candis Callison SM '02 PhD '10, professor and award-winning journalist, to speak at 2018 Investiture of Doctoral Hoods | MIT News
April 3, 2018 • ~6 min
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