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January/February 2025

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Features

The Ness of Brodgar

What Scotland’s Old Stones Know

In the Orkney Islands, archaeologists close the chapter on a legendary excavation, capping two decades of remarkable Neolithic discoveries

Photographs by Kieran Dodds

OPENER - A baby pygmy marmoset, under the care of an older member of its cooperative family group, perches on a bough in a gallery forest on the banks of the Aguarico River in eastern Ecuador.

Little Wonders

The world’s smallest monkeys are chatty, family oriented—and facing a shrinking habitat in the remote forests of Ecuador

Photographs by Neil Ever Osborne

OPENER - Loaded with leather and sheepskins, Salvatore Gungui tightens his headscarf. Although only men dress as Mamuthones, the scarf adds a feminine element.

Rites of Winter

On the Italian island of Sardinia, carnival season revolves around nature, community and mysterious traditions

Photographs by Francesco Lastrucci

A hawksbill swims in a coral reef in Barbados

Guardians of the Reef

Can a new DNA database for hawksbill sea turtles pinpoint the threats they face—and the protections that might save them?

Photograph by Shane Gross

OPENER - Major Pierce Butler, a U.S. senator representing South Carolina and an original signer of the United States Constitution, left the 1,500-acre rice plantation—and its enslaved laborers—to his grandsons when he died. For locals whose ancestors were

The Enduring Spirit of Butler Island

In Georgia, descendants of people enslaved on an infamous plantation struggle to preserve the site’s complicated history—and honor the region’s rich culture

Photographs by Sheila Pree Bright

Photographs of “disappeared” Argentines

Facing the Past

Four decades after the fall of Argentina’s dictatorship, a fight over the country’s darkest chapter is reopening grievous wounds

Photographs by Sarah Pabst

an illustration of a sailboat in a storm at sea

The Sailboat and the Storm

The untold story of the civilian fleet that patrolled American waters during World War II—and the frantic search for the Zaida, a volunteer vessel lost in a ferocious nor’easter

Departments

Discussion

Your feedback on Bermudian excavations, Japanese internment and one inspiring woman

At the Smithsonian's National Design Museum, a Home Is What You Make of It

In a new exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, artists explore just what makes a space feel like home

The Long Hall

How a lively market on Boston Harbor became known as the cradle of liberty

A Force for Freedom

The remarkable life of one of Boston’s most fervent and daring abolitionists

Feast Your Eyes

In food, the Impressionists found a rich and satisfying subject matter

Listening to the Land

An inventive composer is on a mission to evoke Virginia’s past through strange medleys of sounds

Diving for History

In the waterways of the Midwest, researchers uncover boats as old as the pyramids

Sailing Against the Wind

How Captain John Voss put his dugout canoe—and himself—to the ultimate test

Bold Type

On her beloved typewriters, Octavia Butler tapped out a prescient course for science fiction

Party Animal

President Martin Van Buren wrote the playbook for America’s partisan system. We’re still recovering

American Culture

How Emil Frey whipped up a smooth dairy sensation

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