At the Crossroads
The Penn Museum’s new Eastern Mediterranean Gallery casts the cradle of Abrahamic religions and alphabetic innovation as a cosmopolitan sphere—not just a conflict-ridden one.
A Golden Discovery
Charles Golden Gr’02 is focused on the “everyday world” of the Maya.
A First-Rate Version of Himself
Loren Eiseley G’35 Gr’37 was associated with no great discoveries in his field of anthropology, “awkwardly shy” and “not very comfortable with students” in the classroom, a disaster as Penn’s provost—and a writer of unmatched brilliance on the natural world and the human condition.
Thread Heads
The Stories We Wear at the Penn Museum.
Mapping the Human Journey
Combining old-school fieldwork and ethnography with up-to-the-minute gene-based analyses, Penn molecular anthropologist Theodore G. Schurr has helped shape our understanding of the movement of ancient peoples into the Americas.
Looking Beyond the Gold
Beneath the Surface at the Penn Museum.
The Staid Dissertation Gets a Motion-Picture Makeover
Coming attraction: first film to be submitted as Penn dissertation.
When West Went East
Victor Mair first encountered the Bronze Age mummies of China’s Tarim Basin 23 years ago. He—and others—have been trying to figure out what those people were doing there ever since.
On Hearths, Ancient and Modern
In which the author takes a break from the rigors of her own ethnographic research in France’s Dordogne region to visit with eminent Penn archaeologist Harold Dibble as he plumbs the mysteries of early human and Neandertal behavior—and plots his next gourmet meal.
A Prophecy Fulfilled
Student-curated exhibit restores Lenape history
The Mother Hens of Andrín
“I felt excessively like a biology exhibit.”
Fighting the Religion of Cost Effectiveness
AIDS fighter Paul Farmer on the “cost-effectiveness” fallacy.
The Serpent’s Story—Revealed on Canvas
Aboriginal art explores meteor crater’s creation
News to Chew On: Weaker Jaws, Bigger Brains?
Brains over bite.
Treasuring the Past— and Saving it for the Future
Museum lays out welcome mat for Iraqi visitors
Balancing is Believing
Dr. Kathryn Linn Geurts G’91 Gr’98
The Stamp Seal Mystery
A Bronze Age mound in Central Asia yielded a tantalizing clue to a “new” ancient civilization. For archaeologist Fred Hiebert, it was one more reason why Raphael Pumpelly was right.
Early Amazon Fish Stories
Pre-Hispanic fishing weir discovered in Amazon basin.
A Tangled Web, In More Ways Than One
Susan Lindee sheds light on “Darkness in El Dorado”
Hitting Pay Dirt—er, Mud—in the Black Sea
Flood of discoveries in Black Sea.
On This Farm, Corpses Are Cultivated
William Bass III Gr’61
Justice in the Bones
When a 15-year-old Philadelphia boy was wrongly accused of rape in a case of mistaken identity, public defender Glenn Gilman C’69 and two Penn anthropologists, Dr. Alan Mann and Dr. Janet Monge Gr’80, combined their expertise to ensure that justice was served.
In Eggi’s Village, Harmony Rules by Consensus
Dr. Peggy Reeves Sanday researches the Minangkabau social system.