culture, anth, philosophy and science

Virtually every endangered language is endangered because its community was systematically targeted by genocide, forced cultural assimilation, some kind of political marginalization. On a practical level, language diversity encodes the sum of human cultural, historical and ecological knowledge. As a species, we lose knowledge when we lose languages

We have few firsthand accounts of what being human cargo was like, although around twelve million people over four centuries had the experience.

So basically what happened was, people proposed alternative definitions. Ernst Mayr, for example, he was one of the main architects of this modern synthesis, and probably the one who wrote the most about species and species concepts. And for him, they had to be intrinsically reproductively isolated. Once the lineages reached that point where they c

Gender is a more complicated topic than biological sex, because gender, according to the World Health Organization, “refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed” (20–22). Due to being social constructs, the various characteristics and genders can change over time, and/or across various cultures (21, 22)

These communities were suppressed and erased by the British Empire and its harmful views on gender identity and sexuality. But the damage done by the legacy of homophobia and transphobia introduced by British colonialism doesn’t only live in the past. There are 64 countries around the world that still criminalise homosexuality, and many of them are

Rapa Nui, which sits nearly 2,400 miles (3,800 kilometers) off the coast of Chile, was settled by humans between 1150 and 1280. Although Europeans arrived in the 18th century, they didn't notice the local glyph-based script until 1864, which now exists on only 27 wooden objects, none of which are still on the island. Catholic missionaries took four

People of Bawaka Country in northern Australia have told the space industry that their ancestors guide human life from their home in the galaxy, and that this relationship is increasingly threatened by large orbiting satellite networks.

Similarly, Inuit elders say their ancestors live on celestial bodies. Navajo leadership has asked NASA not to land

The first English recipe for a pineapple tart appeared in The Country Housewife in 1732, but, for the most part, those who were able to grow or obtain a pineapple wouldn’t have dreamed of eating it. ”Why would you eat that? It would be a bit like eating your Gucci handbag. What a waste,” Beauman explained. Instead, nobles would show it off to their

Right now, scientists are excavating a Homo erectus village, about 750,000 years old, in Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in modern-day Israel. And we find that this village is organized hierarchically