SAPIENS is a digital magazine about everything human, told through the stories of anthropologists. It was founded in 2015 and sunsetted in 2025.
The Wenner-Gren Foundation launched SAPIENS with the aim of bringing together the voices of scholars who are eager to share the findings, ideas, and perspectives of anthropology with a broad global readership. As people who study other people, anthropologists look to the past, present, and future to assemble vital observations on what it means to be human. This work matters. Yet all too often research has remained inaccessible to public audiences.
Our purpose was to amplify anthropological insights to make a difference in how people see themselves and those around them. We hoped to make people more curious about—and empathetic toward—their fellow humans. We aimed to provide critical understandings of how and why humans behave and believe as they do. We wanted to help address the inequalities, injustices, and harms humans perpetrate against one another and our planet.
After nearly a decade of publication, more than 25 million readers came to the free magazine to dig into the wonders and complexities of human biology, culture, history, and language. Our stories were republished far and wide, included in K-12 curricula, and translated into multiple languages. Our podcast has been downloaded 1 million times. We created and hosted dozens of training sessions. We earned and fulfilled the promise of more than $1.2 million in grants. The talents anthropologists acquired from SAPIENS helped them win prizes, receive book contracts, and secure media interviews.
SAPIENS was an editorially independent publication of the Wenner-Gren Foundation and, between 2020 and 2025, published in partnership with the University of Chicago Press. The magazine ceased publishing new articles at the close of 2025 but remains free and open as a living archive with a range of writing and teaching resources, 80 podcast episodes, and 1,500 posts, videos, and articles.