Lost Cultures: Living Legacies

Cadie. Acadie. Acadian. Cajun. Acadiana. These words are part of the history and culture that developed in south Louisiana over the course of the last three centuries. They're an integral part of telling their story — but they can't do it alone. Combining elements from various peoples who traveled from several continents, this mix of cultures is so unique, even a gumbo metaphor isn't complex enough to describe it...

When researcher Jorge Estevez visited the Smithsonian as a boy, he saw a sign that stated his people had “disappeared” four centuries before. How did this claim become conventional wisdom? To get to know the history of the Taino people is to understand the effects of brutal colonization combined with historical misinformation — and the process of cultural fusion, which created a people with roots tied to indigenous Caribbean, European, and African ancestors...

How is it that people belonging to one of the oldest civilizations in the world have lost so much of their ancestral homeland? What steps must they take to preserve their culture in the face of such challenging circumstances? Anthropologist Yasmin Moll and Dr...

You’ve likely heard of “Easter Island” and the giant stone statues that famously reside there, confounding people who can’t understand how people could have made and moved them so long in the past...

New York City’s Lower East Side has been home to many communities, from the Lenape to Dutch and English colonizers to an influx of groups from Europe, China, Puerto Rico, and the American South...

Of all the cultures covered on this podcast, why did the Picts come closest to actually being lost? How did these "painted people" from what is now known as Scotland largely disappear from the historical record? Fascinating recent discoveries have helped people to better understand this tribe, who the Romans once faced with fear on the fields of the British Isles...

Australia is a far-away destination for travelers based in most other parts of the world. Its remoteness has bred unique wildlife and, among its people, an archetypal ability to persevere...

Los Angeles today is an influencer on the global stage, thanks to its most well-known industry, Hollywood. And its very name hints at the earlier influence of colonizers from Spain and Mexico in the area. But who were the original influencers of the L.A...

The popular image of Japan is often the modern metropolis of Tokyo or its feudal history, samurai and all. But there’s also a culture you may not know about. It predates even the concept of Japan as a nation, while still existing today...

Many people think of the Maya as existing mainly – perhaps even solely – in the historical record, far in the past from our modern day. But that couldn’t be further from the truth...