Neanderthalian (Homo neanderthalensis) skulls from three different periods, at the Natural History Museum in London, England -- Emőke Dénes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Peter Sahlins Why are we so obsessed with a group of prehistoric humans who disappeared some 40,000 years ago? Ever since the discovery of the first named Neanderthal fossils in 1856, scientists have struggled to make sense of them in tens of thousands of books and articles. But the never-ending Nea

Many of today’s attitudes toward animals have deep philosophical roots. Understanding how those ideas became embedded in culture, law, and social institutions helps explain why changing how we treat animals remains so difficult. By Ondine Sherman [Author’s Note: Humans are animals too. In this article, animals is used as shorthand for nonhuman animals.] At age seven, sitting at the dinner table with my family, I prodded my fork into a thick, squishy brown shape on my plate. M

Democratic participation depends on more than voting rights: people also need material security, practical knowledge, social belonging, and a sense of agency that human ecology education can help cultivate. Danny Howard from San Francisco, CA, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Sandra Ericson The Path From Survival to Citizenship Access to food, stable housing, healthcare, and socioeconomic security shapes more than daily life. Material insecurity can also limit the

Prediction markets allow people to trade on the outcomes of real-world events, from elections and earnings reports to weather and war. Supporters see them as powerful forecasting tools, while critics warn they can encourage speculation, manipulation, and the financialization of uncertainty. Image via news video screenshot By Leslie Alan Horvitz Prediction market platforms allow people to bet on real-world events like politics, culture, economics, war, and sports. Their defini

The desire to stylize a mark is older than writing itself, and the typefaces of today shape what we remember, feel, and trust whenever we read. Blombos Cave ochre and artefacts, photo: Henning, © Chris Henshilwood, CC-BY-2.5; Released under the GNU Free Documentation License. By Irina Matuzava The oldest known engravings consist of zigzag patterns and parallel lines, carved into freshwater mussel shells at Trinil on the island of Java, Indonesia. These grooves, made by Homo e

Arkaio Nomisma, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Gary M. Feinman As democracies around the world face mounting challenges and pressures, discussions about autocracy often focus on personalities and ideologies or tend to link governance practices to differences among specific cultural traditions. Yet a growing body of comparative historical research has provided evidence that a more fundamental question deserves attention: How was and how are governments funded? Across t

As keyboards and touchscreens replace pens and pencils, the decline of handwriting raises questions about cognition, culture, and creativity. Shixart1985, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Danica Tomber When was the last time you wrote something by hand? Was it a stylus signature at a checkout stand, a kitchen calendar reminder, or a note jotted down on a scrap of paper? These days, writing largely lives in the digital realm. Despite its advantages, handwriting has been pus

Psychology and neuroscience help explain why stories shape how we think, feel, remember, and connect with others. Public domain image By Katherine Dolan Story, a spoken or written account of connected events, is one of the main ways we communicate with other people. Whether it’s reading a picture book with a child, watching a movie, listening to a podcast, gossiping over a cup of coffee, or daydreaming about a vacation, we participate in storytelling in some way every day. Al

From war and environmental disaster to poverty and public policy, children face systemic harm that societies often fail to recognize—and can choose to change. Representational image By Colin Greer and Reynard Loki Few ideas command more universal agreement than the belief that children must be protected. Across cultures, religions, and political traditions, they are regarded as uniquely deserving of care, safety, and opportunity. Yet a glaring contradiction emerges when we lo

By Reynard Loki Phrases like “public benefit,” “impact,” “responsibility,” or “sustainability” are routinely used by universities, nonprofits, corporations, and public agencies to describe their work, summarizing complex activities in ways that are easy to communicate to donors, policymakers, journalists, and the public. On the surface, these statements appear straightforward, seeking to improve access to education, reduce environmental harm, or support vulnerable populations

The famous wall painting from Çatalhöyük depicts tightly clustered domestic houses beneath an erupting volcano. Photo/Illustration by Asya Denk. By Erdem Denk The theme for an exhibition that opened on June 4, 2026, at Ankara University’s Faculty of Political Science (Mülkiye), World’s First City Plan/Map, as part of my Arkeopolitics initiative, was met with reservations by a group of students from the Middle East Technical University’s faculty of architecture. They questione

Each leap in human communication—from vocal anatomy to writing to digital networks—followed the same pattern: faster, more complex, less individual. By Deborah Barsky Many people are overwhelmed by the fast-paced evolution of mass communication in a world increasingly shaped by the internet and artificial intelligence (AI). Yet ideas have not always circulated across the globe at lightning speed. Looking into deep time allows us to view our current mode of existence from a br

Research suggests that human consciousness evolved as a cognitive filter, privileging and amplifying human-communicative inputs as a foundation for transmissive teaching and learning, language development, and, ultimately, cultural evolution and culture itself. The Thinker, Musée Rodin, Paris -- Tammy Lo from New York, NY, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Josh Fisher This piece explores human consciousness as the foundational engine of culture, tracing its evolution from e

Archaeological ruins at Mohenjo-daro, Sindh, Pakistan -- Saqib Qayyum, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Adam S. Green Inequality and Urbanism Today’s cities are hotbeds of inequality. Urban real estate is one of the most expensive kinds of land in the world. It attracts billionaires looking to store their wealth and hedge funds looking to garner predictable returns: New York’s avenues, Paris’s thoroughfares, and Dubai’s dazzling skyscrapers are great at making the rich

Viewing food as a system of biological signals helps explain why diets affect people differently and how nutrition can better support metabolism, mental health, and long-term well-being. Touzrimounir, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Michael S. Fenster Modern nutrition science has continued to see food through numbers. Calories, macronutrients, ingredient lists, and percent daily values have become the primary language of eating. This approach, often referred to as “nut

Human ecology offers a framework for understanding how social systems in Nordic countries and New York shape participation, trust, and collective well-being. Skogn folkehøgskole folk high school, Norway -- Ragnhild Lovli, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Sandra Ericson The United States is a nation of extraordinary wealth and extraordinary contradiction. Tens of millions of Americans live in material insecurity, while aggregate wealth continues to expand. Institutional

Tax the Rich placard -- Yuri Keegstra from Milwaukee, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Gary M. Feinman Political debates about democracy often focus on culture, leadership, or polarization. But history points to a more prosaic—and more powerful—driver of political outcomes: how governments raise revenue. Across thousands of years of human history, the strongest predictor of whether power is shared or concentrated is not population size, technological sophistication

Çatalhöyük, 7400 BC, Konya, Turkey - UNESCO World Heritage Site. A very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, 7400 BC (photo 2019) -- Murat Özsoy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Erdem Denk Standing in the dust of Çatalhöyük —a 9,000-year-old Neolithic site known to archaeology since the 1960s, yet virtually non-existent in discussions about political science and law—a question haunted me: “How come no one told us about it?” My tr

Göbeklitepe dig, 2015 -- public domain image By Erdem Denk In the heart of Ankara, less than a kilometer apart, stand two pillars of Turkish academia: the Faculty of Political Science ( Mülkiye ) and the Faculty of Language and History-Geography ( DTCF ). Mülkiye was established in 1859 to navigate the Ottoman Empire’s diplomatic relations with the West, while DTCF was founded by the first president of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in 1935 to create the historical and lingui

The American Southern accent reveals how linguistic prejudice reinforces classism, regionalism, and subconscious bias across generations. Plate with a quote from the film Forrest Gump at Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant in Hollywood, California, USA. -- Prayitno, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Madeline VanArsdale [Author’s note: IPA stands for International Phonetic Alphabet. It is an alphabet of symbols, not entirely unlike the Latin alphabet, which is used to guide pronunc