Human Bridges
From The Observatory
Human Bridges
Autocratically organized societies were characterized by spectacles that foment fear and awe, while participatory rituals predominated in more democratically organized contexts.
How deep history challenges fascist myths of purity, hierarchy, and identity.
The people of Çatalhöyük depicted the world not “as it is” but “as they felt and conceptualized it.”
By comparing self‑medication and caregiving among animals with evidence from the fossil record, we can reinterpret the deep‑time origins of self-medication behavior and recognize treating the injured and ill as a shared biological heritage rather than a uniquely human achievement.
Each leap in human communication—from vocal anatomy to writing to digital networks—followed the same pattern: faster, more complex, less individual.
New insight reveals that inequality was low in one of South Asia’s first cities and that it decreased as its citizens prospered.
Collaborative Research
Archaic Organization of Time, Measurement and Laws, Music, Tribes, and Cities
Michael Hudson started researching and drafting The Creation of Order as a book manuscript in the early 1980s, and his research efforts to understand the systems and structures of archaic societies have continued into the present. Realizing the scale of research necessary to complete the ambitions of the book, Hudson shared the text with the Observatory, in the hopes that future editors would help sift through texts from the past and update and fill in the missing pieces.
We are proud that Hudson’s The Creation of Order is the first Mainframe research project published on the Observatory using our Collaborative Research publishing tool. Invited researchers develop Mainframes, contribute research, engage in peer review, and publish their deliberations in an open-ended and transparent format accessible to interested audiences, all while deciding which information to make public.
We invite you to explore and contribute to this ongoing Collaborative Research and editing project by navigating the table of contents of this book’s chapters’ query pages and have shared this book’s style guide for researchers.
—Jenny Pierson and Jan Ritch-Frel, Observatory Co-FoundersFrom Buddhist monks to Renaissance musicians, fingers and palms once served as portable, visual, and kinesthetic tools for storing knowledge.
Fair representation emerges when governments need to rely on their people financially. Remove that reliance, and representation withers—even if formal democratic institutions remain intact.
The term “arkeopolitics” unifies the archaeology of the “order beneath” (“arkeo”) with the political science of the “order above” (“politics”). With these combined disciplines we can revaluate the human story—from the Paleolithic to the present—through an “amodernist” lens. This is not a retreat into the past, but a strategic expansion of our vocabulary to survive the future.
The archaeological record challenges longstanding theoretical models in political science and anthropology that treat autocracy as an almost inevitable corollary of increasing complexity.
A survey of the parameters of post-mortuary practices recorded from animal behavior, the human archaeological record from the Lower Pleistocene to the Iron Age, and ethnographic/ethological research.
In Georgian Britain, Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccine sparked panic over “beastly” side effects, exposing how new science can collide with old beliefs.
Our robust Paranthropus cousins thrived in Africa for a million and a half years, making stone tools and sharing the landscape with different '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00001970-QINU`"' species at the dawn of human cultural innovation.
Who and where were the Proto-Indo-Europeans? Almost 450 languages spoken by 4 billion people descend from their tongue—and J.P. Mallory has been on a life-long journey to reconstruct their world.
A conversation with the legendary evolutionary thinker and archaeologist, Eudald Carbonell.
By Jan Ritch-Frel and Deborah Barsky
The late Stone Age is not commonly associated with socially stratified societies, yet archaeologist Mehmet Özdoğan argues social and political elites were already shaping communities when humans began farming.
Dead States, Living Borders: Three Historical Cases of ‘State Revival’: Armenia, Vietnam, and Poland
A new digital tool, Phersu Atlas, uses infographics and interactive maps to illustrate the recurring patterns of statehood.
The appearance of cuteness is not arbitrary, but rather an evolutionary mechanism that promotes infant and group survival.
Advances in technology make the reconstruction of the past increasingly realistic. However, as archaeology has learned, bringing back the past is never as straightforward as it seems.
In the early 20th century, architects and artists like Hugh Ferriss drew on the myths and monuments of ancient Babylon to imagine futuristic skylines—melding ziggurats with modernism in a visionary blend of the past and the possible.
These archaeological structures provide researchers with insight of prehistoric cultures, specifically their burial practices and construction coordination.
Discover how hunter-gatherer societies actively maintained equality through mockery, shared resources, and social strategies, challenging the assumption that egalitarianism is “simple” and revealing the complex effort it takes to keep everyone on equal footing.
Baldwin examines the glyph sequences of Easter Island's Rongorongo tablets.
A new archeology is being developed based on evidence of human activity in the Earth’s sedimentary record, and archeologists are helping to define the Anthropocene as a new stage in the geological record.
Research sheds light on the orbitofrontal cortex, the part of the brain scientists termed a “cognitive map framework” of decision-making in social contexts.
Frederick L. Coolidge explains the link between numerosity and language.
Bronze Age burials at Başur Höyük predate Mesopotamian city-states, yet they lack evidence of palaces or complex governance.
By studying past societies and their relationship with their environment, archaeologists can offer unique insight into future human and planetary challenges, such as climate change and environmental pollution.
With housing disparity data from more than 1,000 archaeological sites, researchers are tracing historical wealth differences across the globe.
Humans have long used and selected for certain materials due to their aesthetic appeal.
The attraction to luster is rooted in our evolutionary history and has persisted among prehistoric artifacts, ancient civilizations, and consumer culture.
Political partisanship is predicted by the way our brains process basic political words or concepts.
Peter Coyote invites you to look at the media, research, and education initiatives related to the Human Bridges Project.
Between 50,000 and 35,000 years ago in Eurasia, the disappearance of hominin species or their biocultural assimilation with anatomically modern humans is one of the biggest questions in prehistory today.
The pioneering research by one of the founders of economic anthropology is essential for understanding the social and institutional processes that gave rise to money as we know it.
These interactive books and events encourage fresh perspectives on long-standing social systems.
Giorgio Buccellati’s At the Origins of Politics takes readers to the early stages of a process that became the structure of modern life.
From King Tutankhamun's iron dagger to ancient civilizations' sacred stones, meteorites have shaped human history, myth, and metallurgy after falling from the heavens.
As we head into a future shaped by climate change, we must find ways to stabilize societies and reduce conflict. Solutions may lie in the archaeological record.
How new information changes theories.
By applying a concept widely used in mathematics and computer science, Carole Crumley has radically changed the way anthropologists see and study societies.
The concept of heterarchy has joined a developing paradigm shift in the social sciences.
Anthropologists have recognized the characteristic patterns of butchery on human remains in archaeological sites from around the world, across huge swathes of time.
Looking to our cultural evolutionary origins might help us improve society at many levels.
Anthropologists’ research on the origins of war, going back to the beginning of human history and our closest ape relatives, suggests war is not part of our evolution. They also find systems of peace work, and many already exist.
What draws us to such a distant and long-gone time? A fruitful relationship has always existed between prehistory (a scientific discipline constantly refreshed by new discoveries) and the visual artists who interpret it.
Language plays an important role in understanding the concept of numbers.
What led humans on the unique path of cultural development? And can we do anything useful with newly reconstructed histories of this process?
Mesoamerican communication systems reflect their government: autocratic societies used restricted writing, while cooperative ones favored accessible texts.
By Gary M. Feinman and David M. Carballo
African ape fossils are missing from a key Miocene period. Did apes evolve in Eurasia and return to Africa, or are fossils missing?
Twin research sheds light on genetics, behavior, and evolutionary psychology, helping us understand human nature and individual differences.
Analyzing the collapses of four historical empires—Ming China, Mughal India, the High Roman Empire, and Renaissance Venice—to uncover patterns and lessons.
How pseudo-archaeology and alternative history, fueled by media and conspiracy culture, have gained popularity in the U.S., influencing extremist ideologies.
Has map
This is a guide to notable prehistoric and ecological sites in Costa Rica and the museums and supplemental media you can use to learn more about them.
Today’s state has turned over profit-seeking activity to the private sector. It runs its operations at a loss, and finances them by levying taxes on the private-sector surplus.
New findings and significant advances in research have scientists rethinking our origins, and museums around the world are working to catch the public up.
Scientists investigate whether all species have the ability to detect and match a rhythmic beat.
The broad consensus is that many species are sentient.
Interviewing the neuroscientist and primate behavior expert on a question that could radically change our understanding of reality.
We know from history that there are many ways we can live together—let’s explore the idea.
A conversation with renowned archaeologist Gary M. Feinman on the emergence of a global data set from our past that humanity can use to prosper—and avoid the biggest mistakes.
An interview with renowned economic historian Michael Hudson on where our calendar comes from, his collaborations with the late intellectual David Graeber, and the long-lost practice of forgiving debt.
The wealth of qualitative and quantitative archaeological data challenges the Eurocentric notion of a single linear course in human history.
Economist Michael Hudson traces the changing form of organization of labor shaped economies, fiscal policy and property rights over time.
Just as humans gradually developed bipedalism to aid their survival, they have innate responses to circumstances and tendencies that guide their behavior.
Collaborative efforts between forest agencies and Indigenous communities are improving wildfire management by combining oral histories with long-term archaeological datasets, demonstrating the value of integrating an understanding of the past into solutions for a better future.
The ability to prevent rentier oligarchies from emerging turns out to be the key distinction between “kingship” (or modern socialism) and “free market” economies.
Examining the debt crises that creditors have caused throughout history may help us out of a modern economic emergency.
Developments in the study of human prehistory hold clues about our times, our world, and ourselves.
You can learn a lot about humanity from the first technological revolutions of more than 10,000 years ago.
Michael Hudson examines some of the specific conditions that led to the practice of charging interest.
Reforms by “tyrants” introduced coinage, debt forgiveness and a fairer distribution of wealth.
A paradigm shift has occurred in our understanding of when the first humans settled in Western Eurasia.
There are alternatives to leaving society to the mercy of predatory wealth-seeking individuals—one example is Bronze Age Mesopotamia.
The European Union project might appear unprecedented but it is not. The Holy Roman Empire successfully managed the affairs of central Europe by creating a similar composite political structure.
Human technologies have continued to evolve exponentially since the end of the Paleolithic: today we are using them to learn more about the past.
A 2021 study on the effects of climate crises in ancient Mesopotamia found increased cooperation and a more widespread distribution of power.
The movement to revillage our modern world seeks to combat mental illness, housing and climate disasters.
Our first molars emerge at exactly the right time for a primate trying to build an enormous brain the size of ours.
Today’s debt overhead is transferring land, natural resources, and infrastructure monopolies into the hands of a rentier class. This has happened before and it doesn’t end well.
The history of antiquity shows that evolution is not inevitably carried upward by economic or technological potential automatically realizing itself. Entrepreneurs have obtained surpluses through the ages, but often in ways that injure society as a whole.
The changing context for enterprise through the centuries reminds us that business activities are not universal but fluid and alter according to society’s practical priorities and ethics.
Ancient human retrovirus DNA could be one of the markers of susceptibility to mental illness—specifically schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder, a new study suggests.
A public entrepreneurial initiative is difficult for many modern observers to acknowledge because we have virtually inverted the relations of Bronze Age enterprise and finance.
The overall picture of when and where the specific characteristics of our human ancestors appeared has a plausible answer.
Humans learn cues to perceive social hierarchy as early as infancy, and later self-perceptions of lower rank, however accurate, affect health and happiness.
Playing encourages cooperation and tolerance, and may even support collective decision-making.
Silver was primarily used by the Palace for entrepreneurial purposes, a means of increasing wealth for the public good.
The oligarchic tradition of landgrabbing and tax dodging goes back centuries.
Today’s creditor-oriented ideology depicts the archaic past as much like our own world, as if civilization was developed by individuals thinking in terms of modern orthodoxy.
Whether in the realms of trade or agriculture, the operative principle was that debtors should not lose their economic liberty by being held liable for “acts of God.”
Legible and open urban plans with widespread access to services and power tend to be associated with more collective, less autocratic forms of governance, says a new study.
The human species boasts something rare among all animals: females who live long beyond their ability to reproduce.
In a world so profoundly transformed by science and technology, it seems reasonable to ask: Why do religions still exist?
Of all the pivotal technologies discovered by humans, fire making was the one that gifted our species with power beyond all others.
Extensive ocher use reflects the culture and cognitive abilities of early humans, who inherited an affinity for red from primate ancestors.
We need a broad comparative lens to produce useful explanations and narratives of our origins across time
Many of our modern financial constructs were invented in Bronze Age Mesopotamia. One of these was interest-bearing debt.
Not only were “modern” elements of enterprise present and even dominant already in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC, but the institutional context was conducive to long-term growth.
