Bringing recent discoveries in human origins and biology into social and political consciousness.
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How deep history challenges fascist myths of purity, hierarchy, and identity.
Autocratically organized societies were characterized by spectacles that foment fear and awe, while participatory rituals predominated in more democratically organized contexts.
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.
Collaborative Research
Archaic Organization of Time, Measurement and Laws, Music, Tribes, and Cities
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.
From seasonal cycles and reincarnation to cosmic destruction and rebirth, ancient Greek and Roman philosophers developed competing theories of how time repeats—and what that repetition means for human life.
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.
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.
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.
These archaeological structures provide researchers with insight of prehistoric cultures, specifically their burial practices and construction coordination.
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.
With housing disparity data from more than 1,000 archaeological sites, researchers are tracing historical wealth differences across the globe.
Bronze Age burials at Başur Höyük predate Mesopotamian city-states, yet they lack evidence of palaces or complex governance.
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.
Peter Coyote invites you to look at the media, research, and education initiatives related to the Human Bridges Project.
Political partisanship is predicted by the way our brains process basic political words or concepts.
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.
How new information changes theories.
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.
By applying a concept widely used in mathematics and computer science, Carole Crumley has radically changed the way anthropologists see and study societies.
Nineteenth-century activists revolutionized attitudes toward nonhuman animals amid cultural, economic, and moral shifts in a rapidly changing nation.
By Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy in Animals | Earth Food Life Project and Human Bridges Project | English | February 3, 2025
The Venetian Republic’s political system, emerging alongside those of other Italian city-states, was founded on collaboration and power distribution. Its rise and decline highlight the importance of adaptability in the face of shifting global political dynamics.
Frederick L. Coolidge explains the link between numerosity and language.
Anthropologists have recognized the characteristic patterns of butchery on human remains in archaeological sites from around the world, across huge swathes of time.
Language plays an important role in understanding the concept of numbers.
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.
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.
What led humans on the unique path of cultural development? And can we do anything useful with newly reconstructed histories of this process?
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.
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.
Interviewing the neuroscientist and primate behavior expert on a question that could radically change our understanding of reality.
You can learn a lot about humanity from the first technological revolutions of more than 10,000 years ago.
Twin research sheds light on genetics, behavior, and evolutionary psychology, helping us understand human nature and individual differences.
African ape fossils are missing from a key Miocene period. Did apes evolve in Eurasia and return to Africa, or are fossils missing?
How pseudo-archaeology and alternative history, fueled by media and conspiracy culture, have gained popularity in the U.S., influencing extremist ideologies.
The overall picture of when and where the specific characteristics of our human ancestors appeared has a plausible answer.
By Marjorie Hecht in Human Bridges | Human Bridges Project | English | May 31, 2024 | Guide to Human Bridges
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.
Of all the pivotal technologies discovered by humans, fire making was the one that gifted our species with power beyond all others.
Humans learn cues to perceive social hierarchy as early as infancy, and later self-perceptions of lower rank, however accurate, affect health and happiness.
In a world so profoundly transformed by science and technology, it seems reasonable to ask: Why do religions still exist?
Our first molars emerge at exactly the right time for a primate trying to build an enormous brain the size of ours.
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.
Playing encourages cooperation and tolerance, and may even support collective decision-making.
The wealth of qualitative and quantitative archaeological data challenges the Eurocentric notion of a single linear course in human history.
Evolution has shaped the way we bond with one another, especially in regards to our rather unlikely mating system: monogamy.
Peer learning is a way of transferring important information beyond our own native social groups.
A paradigm shift has occurred in our understanding of when the first humans settled in Western Eurasia.
Mysterious stone balls continue to puzzle archaeologists.
We need a broad comparative lens to produce useful explanations and narratives of our origins across time
A 2021 study on the effects of climate crises in ancient Mesopotamia found increased cooperation and a more widespread distribution of power.
There are strong evidence that clans, culture, and dialects are not unique to humans.
Just as humans gradually developed bipedalism to aid their survival, they have innate responses to circumstances and tendencies that guide their behavior.
Is large-scale intraspecific warfare Homo sapiens’ condition, or can our species strive to achieve global peace?
New findings and significant advances in research have scientists rethinking our origins, and museums around the world are working to catch the public up.
The success of our species may come down to one key trait: the ability to cooperate with people who are not relatives.
The human species boasts something rare among all animals: females who live long beyond their ability to reproduce.
What reading Georges Bataille could teach you about the birth of art—and of humanity.
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.
Developments in the study of human prehistory hold clues about our times, our world, and ourselves.
Looking to our cultural evolutionary origins might help us improve society at many levels.
What we can learn from an ancient egalitarian civilization in the Indus Valley.
The evidence tells us that cooperative and pluralistic governments were at least as common as and more resilient than despotic states in the region.
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.
Today’s hot-button issue is actually as old as the human race.
We are witnessing a dramatic decline in the legitimacy of democracy as a governing ideal.
Mark Changizi’s study offers a scientific and anthropological explanation for a phenomenon many take for granted.
The movement to revillage our modern world seeks to combat mental illness, housing and climate disasters.
Associated Authors
Josh Fisher is a writer and educational theorist whose work explores how knowledge and understanding emerge through shared meaning, social coordination, and cultural transmission.
Deborah Barsky is a writing fellow for the Human Bridges project of the Independent Media Institute, a researcher at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution, and an associate professor at the Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain, with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). She is the author of Human Prehistory: Exploring the Past to Understand the Future.
Brenna R. Hassett is a biological anthropologist and archaeologist whose research focuses on childhood, growth, and health in the past.
Irina Matuzava is a contributor to the Human Bridges project.
Yann Perreau is a writer, educator, contemporary art curator, and writing fellow for the Human Bridges project of the Independent Media Institute. He has published several books on art, climate, anonymity, and more. His articles have appeared in many publications, including Libération, Art Press, and East of Borneo. He has served as a cultural attaché for both the French Embassy in London and the French Consulate in Los Angeles. He holds an MPhil in art history from Paris’s EHESS.
