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Prehistoric mounds on the campus of Louisiana State University.

Googling for Oldest Structure in the Americas Leads to Heaps of Debate

The straightforward way in which Google answers this query is a case study in how new science becomes accepted as fact in the modern era of rapid communication.
An illustration imagining Maura, an indigenous Filipino woman.

Searching for Maura

A Filipino woman died after coming to the U.S. to be put on display at the 1904 World's Fair. A Smithsonian anthropologist likely took part of her brain.
The cover of a book, titled "Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey", written by Robert "Mack" McCormick.

Delta Force

A look at "Biography Of A Phantom", Robert McCormick's book about blues legend Robert Johnson.
Petroglyphs in southern Wyoming, probably dating to the early 17th century, include well-preserved images of horses and riders, depicted with riding equipment and shields.

Horse Nations

After the Spanish conquest, horses transformed Native American tribes much earlier than historians thought.
Image of "Nature" journal published in 1904

How "Nature" Contributed To Science’s Discriminatory Legacy

We want to acknowledge — and learn from — our history.
Library of Ashurbanipal Mesopotamia 1500-539 BC Gallery, British Museum, London

Stop Weaponizing History

Right and left are united in a vulgar form of historicism.
Painting of Patent Office in 1855

A Sea of “Savage Islands”: How Antebellum Americans at Home Imagined the Pacific World

When most U.S. nationals in the early republic thought of the Pacific Ocean, they conjured lands instead.
Rose Dougan at the Wright School of aviation in 1915

Flying Rose Dougan: On the Trail of Native American Art

Uncovering the life of Rose Dougan, a real Renaissance woman, and her pioneering role in preserving Native American art.
A drawing of people tending crops and preparing food near mud-covered pit houses.

One Ancient Culture Actually Benefited From 'The Worst Year in Human History'

The challenges of 536 CE, including cold temperatures and volcanic fallout, prompted a flourishing of Ancestral Pueblo society.
Anthropometric data sheet of Alphonse Bertillon with his picture straight on and in profile

Face Surveillance Was Always Flawed

On the origins, use, and abuse of mugshots.
An unkempt cemetery

When Black History Is Unearthed, Who Gets to Speak for the Dead?

Efforts to rescue African American burial grounds and remains have exposed deep conflicts over inheritance and representation.
Chart of race-based castes.

The Limits of Caste

By neglecting the history of the Black diaspora, Isabel Wilkerson's "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents" fails to reckon with systems of racial capitalism.

The Enduring Lessons of a New Deal Writers Project

The case for a Federal Writers' Project 2.0.
Forest on fire with two firefighters spraying water

A Note from the Fireline

Climate change and the colonial legacy of fire suppression.
A graphic depicting covid-19 with a plane on top of it.

Emerging Diseases, Re-Emerging Histories

The diseases that prove best suited to global expansion are those that best exploit humans' global networks and behaviors in a given age.

The Edge of the Map

Monsters have always patrolled the margins of the map. By their very strangeness, they determined the boundaries of the regular world.
Zora Neale Hurston in a bookstore with a copy of 'American Stuff'

How Did Artists Survive the First Great Depression?

What is the role of artists in a crisis?

Indian Removal

One of the world's first mass deportations, bureaucratically managed and large-scale, took place on American soil.

The History of Loneliness

Until a century or so ago, almost no one lived alone; now many endure shutdowns and lockdowns on their own. How did modern life get so lonely?
Deserted farm road through corn fields.

Land-Grab Universities

Expropriated Indigenous land is the foundation of the land-grant university system.
Statue of Hannah Duston frowning, pointing, and wielding an axe.

The White Heroine Who Legitimized Racial Aggression

White racial violence in America has never been a random collection of individual or unrelated crimes of passion against minorities.

A Meditation on Natural Light and the Use of Fire in United States Slavery

Responding to “Race and the Paradoxes of the Night,” by Celeste Henery.

Why Historical Analogy Matters

If the idea of historical incommensurability is right, then analogical reasoning in history becomes an impossibility.
Travels through Virginia. From Theodor de Bry's 'America', Vol. I, 1590, after a drawing of John White. Depicting American Indians dancing.

The Construction of America, in the Eyes of the English

In Theodor de Bry’s illustrations for "True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia," the Algonquin are made to look like the Irish. Surprise.
Human skull in a museum display case.

The Extremely Fast Peopling of the Americas

Two genetic studies show how the first Native Americans spread through their new continent with incredible speed.

White Nationalists Held a Race Rally in Charlottesville. The Location Was No Coincidence.

The region was at the epicenter of eugenic policy-making in the first half of the 20th century.

Lonesome for Our Home

Zora Neale Hurston’s long-lost oral history with one of the last survivors of the Atlantic slave trade.

The Last Slave

In 1931, Zora Neale Hurston recorded the story of Cudjo Lewis, the last living slave-ship survivor. It languished in a vault... until now.
Map displaying Francis Parkman Jr's route on the Oregon Trail.

Native History: Harvard Rich Kid Starts Research for ‘Oregon Trail’

On June 15, 1846, Francis Parkman Jr., a young, Harvard-educated historian, arrived at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, to begin his journey along the Oregon Trail.
An illustration depicting the size of the Titanic in comparison to world wonders.

The Unsinkable Myth

Reflections on the various legends surrounding the world's most famous ship.

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