Indigenous Peoples

Timber beams extend through a wall of Pueblo Bonito, the largest of the Great Houses in Chaco Canyon.

Where Did Chaco Canyon's Timber Come From?

In a nearly treeless desert, Ancestral Puebloans built Great Houses with more than 200,000 massive log beams

Disney just announced that a live-action remake of its 2016 film Moana is in the works.

'Moana' Will Set Sail Again in Disney's Live-Action Remake

Dwayne Johnson will co-produce the film—and reprise his role as the demigod Maui

After Yellowstone National Park faced an unusually harsh winter, a large number of its nearly 6,000 bison migrated to find food and more temperate climates.

Controversial Yellowstone Hunt Kills More Than 1,100 Bison

The hunt is an effort to control the animal's population and protect cattle outside the park

An elaborate dance sequence from the 1943 production, choreographed by Agnes de Mille

Behind 'Oklahoma!' Lies the Remarkable Story of a Gay Cherokee Playwright

Lynn Riggs wrote the play that served as the basis of the hit 1943 musical

A sunet behind the mountains in what is now the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada

Biden Designates Two New National Monuments

In total, the protected areas across Nevada and Texas encompass 514,000 acres of public lands

The resort sits at the base of Palisades Tahoe, a ski resort that dropped the slur from its name two years ago.

California Resort Drops Racial Slur From Its Name

The resort worked with representatives from the Washoe Tribe to implement the name change

Alaska Railroad's main line stretches 470 miles between Seward and Fairbanks.

Alaska

For 100 Years, the Alaska Railroad Has Been a Critical Artery Pumping Passengers and Freight Through the State

Along with celebrations, the centennial offers a chance to consider the effects the rail system has had on the state and its people

Moai statues on Easter Island 

Cool Finds

Dried Lake Reveals New Statue on Easter Island

The stone monolith is one of the famous moai sculptures scattered across the landscape

Chichén Itzá is home to famous Maya structures such as El Castillo.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Find Elite Residences at Mexico's Chichén Itzá

The housing complex is the first discovery of its kind in the ruined Maya city

Stories of the enslaved people who helped kick-start paleontology and the Native American guides who led naturalists to fossils around the continent have long been suppressed.

The First Fossil Finders in North America Were Enslaved and Indigenous People

Decades before paleontology’s formal establishment, Black and Native Americans discovered—and correctly identified—millennia-old fossils

Aerial view of Apple's California headquarters

How California Took Over the World

A sweeping book offers a provocative new history arguing that today's inequality can be traced back to the state's founding

Havasu Falls in Arizona

Havasu Falls Is Reopening After Three Years

Travelers whose reservations were canceled during the pandemic are first in line

Indigenous people brought to Spain by Hernán Cortés play the game patolli.

The Indigenous Americans Who Visited Europe

A new book reverses the narrative of the Age of Discovery, which has long evoked the ambitions of Europeans looking to the Americas rather than vice versa

Archaeologists used a remotely operated vehicle called Deep Trekker to explore the H.M.S. Erebus site.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Recover 275 Artifacts From Mysterious Arctic Shipwreck

Explorer John Franklin and his 128 crew members disappeared while searching for the Northwest Passage in the 1840s

Fascinating finds unveiled in 2022 ranged from a 2,000-year-old statue of a dog to colorful sarcophagi at Saqqara to a Qing dynasty vase.

Cool Finds

Ninety-Six Fascinating Finds Revealed in 2022

The year's most exciting discoveries included hidden portraits by Cézanne and van Gogh, sarcophagi buried beneath Notre-Dame, and a medieval wedding ring

Vandals broke in to Koonalda Cave in South Australia and wrote a prank message over 30,000 year old art

Vandals Destroy 30,000-Year-Old Indigenous Cave Drawings in Australia

The perpetrators broke in to the cave and defaced some of the earliest known examples of First Peoples Rock Art

Critics say the portrayal of the Na'avi alien species in Avatar appropriates and homoginizes Indigenous cultures.

Indigenous Activists Criticize 'Avatar' Sequel

They say the film romanticizes colonization and reduces Indigenous cultures to vague stereotypes

Sim’oogit Ni’isjoohl (Chief Earl Stephens) of the Nisga’a Nation with the Ni’isjoohl memorial pole

Inside the Nisga'a Nation's Fight to Get a 36-Foot Totem Pole Back From Scotland

National Museums Scotland agreed to repatriate the object, which was stolen in 1929, following an in-person appeal by an Indigenous delegation

This year’s picks include Fresh Banana Leaves, Origin and Starry Messenger.

The Best Books of 2022

The Ten Best Science Books of 2022

From a detective story on the origins of Covid-19 to a narrative that imagines a fateful day for dinosaurs, these works affected us the most this year

Harvard's Peabody Museum received the collection of 700 Native American hair samples as a donation in 1935.

Harvard Museum Pledges to Return Hair Samples of 700 Native American Children

The samples come from students who were forced to attend government-run boarding schools

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