Season 4 of the SAPIENS Podcast explores how Black and Indigenous voices are changing the stories archaeology tells.
Searching for sunken slave ships. Preserving sacred sites. Challenging narratives. Uncovering hidden histories. All through the experiences of Black and Indigenous archaeologists.
The fourth season of the SAPIENS Podcast explores how Black and Indigenous voices are changing the stories archaeology tells. Through an array of deep dives, interviews, and storytelling, this seven-episode season shares the stories of humanity’s pasts to orient us towards a new future.
The season’s hosts are Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez (Diné/Nez Perce), a professor of anthropology at Northern Arizona University, and Yoli Ngandali (Ngbaka), a Ph.D. student in archaeology at the University of Washington. They take listeners on a journey to explore why these stories matter—how archaeology is not just about who we were, but about who we are and who we can become.
Each episode covers a different area of archaeology and region of the world, taking listeners on the search for slave ships in the Caribbean, down the exhibit halls of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, into the field looking for hidden graves of children stolen to boarding schools in Canada, and on dinner plates around the world that bear the legacies of “slave cuisine.”
“We’re really trying to push away from the idea that archaeologists are just going to study and catalog and analyze objects,” Yoli Ngandali explains about the season. “What we’re trying to do is reconnect and reestablish relationships with the communities that have been the subject of archaeology, but whose voices have too often not been heard.”
The SAPIENS podcast is an editorially independent series produced by Denver-based House of Pod. The podcast is based on SAPIENS Magazine, supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and published in partnership with the University of Chicago Press.
Season 4 was created in collaboration with the Society of Black Archaeologists, Indigenous Archaeology Collective, and Archaeology Centers Coalition, with funding from Imago Mundi Fund at Foundation for the Carolinas and nine universities. A companion series to expand on these conversations entitled “SAPIENS Talk Back” is being produced in collaboration with Cornell University’s RadioCIAMS. Additionally, complementary curricula for university classrooms are accessible on Teaching SAPIENS.
The new season of SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is now available on all major podcatchers.
News Release