Could ancient humans really have built the pyramids without extraterrestrial help? Or do such questions reveal more about modern anxieties than the past itself?

Debunking alien claims matters, but so does telling richer, more compelling stories about how humans shaped their own past.

When people are shown a spiky shape next to a rounded one and asked which shape is called "kiki" and which one is "bouba," people from all kinds of cultures overwhelmingly associate "bouba" with the ...