Anthropologist.
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Chip Colwell’s essays and editorials have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, among other magazines and newspapers, while his research has been covered by such outlets as the BBC, National Geographic, and Forbes. His book Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture received enthusiastic reviews in the Wall Street Journal, Science, New Scientist, and elsewhere. It has received six prizes, including the 2019 National Council on Public History Book Award and the 2020 Society for Historical Archaeology James Deetz Book Award.
After 12 years at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Dr. Colwell left in 2020 as the Senior Curator of Anthropology. He has received grants and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, National Endowment for the Humanities, Rockefeller Foundation, Fulbright Program, and National Science Foundation. He has written and edited 12 books. Although a serious academic, Dr. Colwell talks and writes like a normal human being. Viewers have watched his TEDx talk more than 1 million times. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of SAPIENS—an online magazine about anthropology for everyone, published by the Wenner-Gren Foundation—and co-host of the SAPIENS Podcast. |
Susan Murtaugh (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Stuff
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More than three million years ago on the savannas of East Africa, our ancient ancestors realized that rocks could be broken apart and turned into knives. Most immediately, the discovery resulted in a good meal. More distantly, it changed the fate of our species and the future of our planet.
In this forthcoming book, archaeologist Chip Colwell sets off on a journey to investigate why humankind went from naked apes to ceaseless shoppers. How did we turn from primates that needed nothing to people who need everything? Under contract with the University of Chicago Press |
Plundered Skulls & Stolen Spirits
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Who owns the past and the objects that physically connect us to history? And who has the right to decide this ownership, particularly when the objects are sacred or, in the case of skeletal remains, human? Is it the museums that care for the objects or the communities whose ancestors made them?
These questions are at the heart of Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits, an unflinching insider account by a leading curator who has spent years learning how to balance these controversial considerations. |
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Chip acknowledges his home in Colorado is on the traditional lands of 48 Native American tribes who now live throughout the American Southwest, Great Plains, and Rocky Mountains.
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