When it comes to the division of labor in hunter-gather societies, the stereotype is generally that men hunt and women gather. But when a recent study claimed that women in hunter-gather societies hunt just as much as their male counterparts, the finding made news around the world. But why does gender equality in the past matter so much today?

This episode focuses on the complexities of work, gender, and power throughout human evolution. Evolutionary anthropologist Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias guides us through what these can tell us about gender roles in humanity’s past and the origins of uneven power dynamics.

Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias is a postdoctoral researcher in evolutionary anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Her research aims to reconstruct the past of contemporary hunting and gathering people from different places in Africa to better understand the processes that shaped the enormous genetic and cultural diversity on the continent today. Her work is interdisciplinary, combining genetic, ecological, and archaeological analyses with ethnographic fieldwork among hunter-gatherer populations in the Republic of Congo. Previously, she worked in the Yucatán Peninsula, studying the drivers of linguistic diversity.

Check out these related resources:

• “The Myth of Man the Hunter: Women’s Contribution to the Hunt Across Ethnographic Contexts”
• “Female Foragers Sometimes Hunt, yet Gendered Divisions of Labor Are Real: A Comment on Anderson et al. (2023) ‘The Myth of Man the Hunter’”
• “Man the Hunter Nearing 60: An Interview With Richard B. Lee”
• “Hunting and Gathering: The Human Sexual Division of Foraging Labor”
• “Is 'Man the Hunter' Dead?”
• “The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong”

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SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by Written In Air. The executive producers are Dennis Funk and Chip Colwell. This season’s host is Eshe Lewis, who is also the director of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program. Production and mix support are provided by Rebecca Nolan. Christine Weeber is the copy editor.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the University of Chicago Press. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

This episode is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program, which provides in-depth training for anthropologists in the craft of science communication and public scholarship, funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Since its emergence in 1960s Harlem, the LGBTQ+ “ballroom scene” has expanded into a transnational subculture. For outsiders, understanding how a ball functions can take time.

Join linguistic anthropologist Dozandri Mendoza as they “walk” us through a night at a kiki ball in Puerto Rico. They introduce us to DJs, commentators, performers, and the Boricua Ballroom children who are refashioning the techniques of their trans-cestors. Dozandri guides us through both the expectations of those on the sidelines of the ballroom runway and the anticolonial political meanings behind the Puerto Rican ballroom scene.

Dozandri Mendoza is a Ph.D. candidate in linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Their doctoral research focuses on trans forms of creative expression in the Puerto Rican ballroom scene. Dozandri explores the representation of Puerto Rican linguistic practices in the archive of ballroom history. They also examine what verbal and embodied art forms such as reading, throwing shade, commentation, and walking a category teach us about diasporic memory, decolonial critique, and trans survival. Their work centers around a multimodal and performance-based ethnographic installation called the “Kiki Ball del Palabreo” held in Puerto Rico in 2023. Dozandri’s research has been supported by a Society for Visual Anthropology/Lemelson Foundation Fellowship, the Duberman-Zal Fellowship from the Center for LGBTQ+ Studies, and grants from the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UCSB.

Check out these related resources:

• Laborivogue (Host of the ball and ballroom performance collective in Puerto Rico)
• Afroponka Fest (Festival of which the Black is Ponka Kiki Ball was a part)

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SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by Written In Air. The executive producers are Dennis Funk and Chip Colwell. This season’s host is Eshe Lewis, who is also the director of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program. Production and mix support are provided by Rebecca Nolan. Christine Weeber is the copy editor.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the University of Chicago Press. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

This episode is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program, which provides in-depth training for anthropologists in the craft of science communication and public scholarship, funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

The United Fruit Company was a U.S. multinational corporation and at one time, the largest landholder in Central America. To maintain authority in this part of the world, the company stamped out labor reform, collaborated with U.S.-backed coups, and, oddly enough, invested in archaeology. Why?

In this episode, anthropologist Charlotte Williams explores the company’s role in preserving the past. She discusses United Fruit's botched conservation project at the Maya site of Zaculeu and the ongoing impacts of that program.

Charlotte Williams is a Mellon Democracy and Landscapes Initiative fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University (2024–2025), and a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research explores how archaeology as a discipline has been used in U.S. imperial projects, with a focus on how the United Fruit Company used archaeology to grow territorial power in Central America. Charlotte has worked on community museum projects, coordinated decolonizing museum programs, and co-curated an independent art exhibition.

Check out these related resources:

• “The Fruits of Extraction”
• “Zaculeu, Guatemala: reflexiones y propuestas para un retorno local”
• Zaculeu, fortaleza mam Facebook page
• “Conquest and Revival at Chiantla Viejo: The Transition of a Highland Maya Community to Spanish Colonial Rule”

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SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by Written In Air. The executive producers are Dennis Funk and Chip Colwell. This season’s host is Eshe Lewis, who is also the director of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program. Production and mix support are provided by Rebecca Nolan. Christine Weeber is the copy editor.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the University of Chicago Press. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

This episode is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program, which provides in-depth training for anthropologists in the craft of science communication and public scholarship, funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.