I wrote about Absence by @solarshades.club and the surprising idea it captures about the allure of cities theantiquarian.email/archive/the-...
The place where no one knows your name
On cities and strangers
theantiquarian.email
Lizzie Wade
@lizziewade.bsky.social
I write about archaeology for Science mag and others. Author of APOCALYPSE, which will make you feel better about the end of the world. Subscribe to The Antiquarian newsletter: https://theantiquarian.email
Geologists in movies have a one-in-three mortality rate.
Murder, monsters, occupational hazards: Why movie geologists die so often
Cinematic geologists are usually good guys—sometimes gals—but they have a one in three fatality rate, a film analysis show
science.org
Proteins recovered from 400,000-year-old fossils show humans living today may have inherited genes from Homo erectus: "There’s far greater complexity in terms of hominins across Eurasia than previously recognized," says @york.ac.uk geochemist Kirsty Penkman. @science.org
Ghost of long-extinct ancestor lives on in people today
Ancient Homo erectus teeth from China yield protein variants seen in Denisovans—and us
science.org
In 2019, I joined a search for Sac Balam, the second-to-last independent Maya capital which survived for over a century hidden from the colonial state. We didn't find it then -- but they might have now! www.science.org/content/arti...
Have archaeologists found the long-lost Maya city of Sac Balam?
Architectural and geographic details match historic descriptions of the colonial, centuries-old jungle refuge
science.org
Reading @garbageday.email on The Daily Wire's new media death spiral and remembering, as I often do, when Ben Shapiro came after me for being "pro human sacrifice" after I wrote about trying to understand Aztec public executions on their own terms 😎 www.garbageday.email/p/ben-shapir...
Ben Shapiro's YouTube traffic is in free fall
Read to the end for the quickpilled brown fox vibemogs lazy chud dogcel by jumpmaxxing
garbageday.email
To think geneticists once assumed the population history of South America would be boring! (Blame colonialism, as usual 🙄) My latest news story for @science.org 🏺 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...
South America—the last continent to be settled—was peopled in surprisingly complex way
Genetically diverse groups arrived in three waves, some potentially carrying genes acquired from long-ago Australasian ancestors
science.org
More thoughts on my recent story about THAT Monte Verde paper, in my newsletter The Antiquarian theantiquarian.email/archive/mean...
Meanwhile, at Monte Verde
The peopling archaeologists are fighting again 👀
theantiquarian.email
What would history look like if the Inca empire conquered Europe? @solarshades.club and I went long on the alternate history novel Civilizations, and now you can read our whole book club! Part 1: Vikings, Columbus, and whether or not we have to care about germs theantiquarian.email/archive/civi...
Civilizations: A Book Club (part 1), feat. Andrew Dana Hudson
In which first contact between Europe and the Americas goes rather differently
theantiquarian.email
The peopling of the Americas archaeologists are fighting again 👀 🏺 www.science.org/content/arti...
Debate explodes over age of key South American archaeological site
New study argues Monte Verde is far younger than once thought, challenging when people arrived in the Americas
science.org
What if Columbus sailed to America...and got his ass beat? Discussing one of my favorite alt history novels with @lizziewade.bsky.social www.solarshades.club/p/civilizati...
Civilizations: A Book Club (part 1), feat. Lizzie Wade
Discussing Laurent Binet’s alternate history novel, in which first contact between Europe and the Americas goes rather differently...
solarshades.club
(2/3) it’s with mixed feelings that we now share these shocking details of the scale and depth of enduring violence, posthumous abuse, secrecy, neglect, and silence about over a quarter of a million human remains in over 250 UK museums. (That’s a higher number than the population of Southampton.)
I just went to Copán for the first time. It's like a less crowded Palenque—and it's full of adorable animal sculptures theantiquarian.email/archive/the-...
The animals of Copán
Click here for Classic Maya cuteness
theantiquarian.email
"They are terrified we will feel rage, sadness, and shame they can’t appropriate to turn us against each other; they live in fear that we might use those feelings to reach out in solidarity instead." theantiquarian.email/archive/say-...
Say their names
Austin, Paris, Hercules, Christopher Sheels, Richmond, Giles, Oney Judge, Moll, and Joe
theantiquarian.email
bless you @brittanytrang.com!!!! I have been trying to figure this out for a year
Brittany Trang@brittanytrang.com · 6mo agoIf anyone else's personal Gmail suddenly started giving AI summaries of your emails with no option to turn them off: I already took the elevated blood pressure hit for you and figure out how to get rid of it WITHOUT getting rid of the multiple inboxes (which I personally need in order to function)
Let's talk restocking Sprouts and Kusimayu's goat theantiquarian.email/archive/the-...
The most haunting scene in Pluribus
On culture and conformity
theantiquarian.email
I've received so many great recs for other bog body books since I sent this that I think I'll have to do a second installment. Reply with your favorites please!
Lizzie Wade@lizziewade.bsky.social · 7mo agoI recently read three books featuring bog bodies and I have thoughts, obviously theantiquarian.email/archive/the-...
I recently read three books featuring bog bodies and I have thoughts, obviously theantiquarian.email/archive/the-...
The bog bodies book club
Reviews of three recent entries
theantiquarian.email
As this difficult and confusing year draws to a close, give the gift of embracing the end of the world. My book APOCALYPSE will show you how bookshop.org/p/books/apoc...
Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures
How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures
bookshop.org
So thrilled that APOCALYPSE is a New Yorker best book of the year! www.newyorker.com/best-books-2...
The Best Books of 2025
The New Yorker’s editors and critics choose this year’s essential reads in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.
newyorker.com
This holiday season, curl up with these melancholy yet stirring tales of worlds past, present, and alternate -- all inspirations as I wrote APOCALYPSE theantiquarian.email/archive/the-...
The books that made APOCALYPSE
My subconscious’s bibliography
theantiquarian.email
The Global North will go to any length to conceal its past from itself, and it's destroying the world. theantiquarian.email/archive/is-t...
Is the past a distraction?
Not when the future depends on it
theantiquarian.email
Thanksgiving dinner still not sitting quite right? Join me in excoriating colonialism, history's greatest apocalypse, on this week's Factually! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov_Y...
We All Feel Like the World's Ending Because It Is (Kind Of) with Lizzie Wade
YouTube video by Adam Conover
youtube.com
Not sure what to get your dad for the holidays? Dads agree: APOCALYPSE is a great dad gift! www.harpercollins.com/products/apo...
Apocalypse
A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read Book of May 2025 • A Publishers Weekly Most Anticipated History Book of the Year • A The Millions Most Anticipated Spring Boo...
harpercollins.com
My newfound Viking interest came upon me unexpectedly and at exactly the right time—a feeling the Vikings would have recognized. 🏺 theantiquarian.email/archive/the-...
The warp of destiny
I’m into the Vikings now
theantiquarian.email
Great story about the value of Indigenous-led archaeology in the Amazon...against this backdrop: "a contest promoted by the company OpenAI challenged citizen researchers worldwide to use [lidar] to find ancient cities in the Amazon" with no consultation 😡🏺 www.science.org/content/arti...
To unearth their past, Amazonian people turn to ‘a language white men understand’
A model partnership between archaeologists and the Kuikuro people has helped rewrite the history of early Amazonian societies
science.org
"But this is the fundamental difference between art and content. The art exists without you, and it has to stand up for itself." This separation has been one of the best and worst feelings of publishing a book defector.com/how-normal-i...
How Normal Is A Celebrity Allowed To Be? | Defector
Elyse Myers is famous for being normal—32-year-old brunette, married with two kids, lives in Nebraska kind of normal. Her press often refers to her as “The Internet’s Best Friend.” In her four years i...
defector.com
Add kissing to the list of things Homo sapiens and Neanderthals did together 🥹 🏺 www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
Neanderthals and early humans ‘likely to have kissed’, say scientists
Study from University of Oxford looks into evolutionary origins of kissing and its role in relations between species
theguardian.com
"But there’s an even more insidious myth about technological inevitability and its capacity for destruction lurking deeper in the past: The supposed superiority of European technology at the time of contact with the Americas." theantiquarian.email/archive/is-a...
Is AI an apocalypse?
Against technological inevitability
theantiquarian.email