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Scientific inquiry is at the center of the Field Museum and housed in the Negaunee Integrative Research Center. This is where community of curators, research scientists, postdoctoral scientists, resident graduate students, and many more associated scholars, undergraduate student interns, and volunteers collaborate to perform this important work. The Field Museum has adopted an integrative approach to research, building on its traditional strengths in Archeology, Anthropology, Botany, Mycology, Meteoritics, Paleontology, and Zoology. This cross-disciplinary enterprise is unlocking some of nature's greatest mysteries.
RECENT NEWS
Scientist Spotlight: Dr. Sabina Cveček, Anthropologist, Negaunee Integrative Research Center
Dr. Sabina Cveček recently completed her Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Global Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Field Museum’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center, where she worked with Dr. William A. Parkinson. Her X-KIN project examined how people formed and maintained kinship beyond biological relatedness, bringing together archaeological, ethnographic, and ancient DNA evidence.
The fellowship resulted in a substantial body of research and interdisciplinary collaboration across continents and anthropology subfields. Cveček published on residential burials in American Antiquity, and World Archaeology, on kinship beyond genetic or biological relatedness in Nature Anthropology and Anthropology Today, and on matrilineal kinship in Archaeological Dialogues. Her research on residential burials also received international media attention, in IFL Science, Archaeology News, and Popular Archaeology, following the Field Museum press release.
Cveček recently co-edited the Cambridge Archaeological Journal special issue “Kinship Trouble: Traversing Interdisciplinary Boundaries between Archaeology, Archaeogenetics and Socio-cultural Anthropology” with geneticist Maanasa Raghavan (University of Chicago) and Penny Bickle (University of York). With her co-authors, Cveček proposed four ways forward to address the kinship trouble: through ethics, training, contexts and interpretations (see Cveček, Raghavan, and Bickle 2026). With Dr. Peter Whiteley of the American Museum of Natural History, Cveček also co-led a five-day Advanced Seminar at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in May 2026. She is currently preparing a volume based on the seminar’s discussions and contributions for publication.
Beyond her research, Cveček served as Chair of the Marie Curie Alumni Association North America Chapter from 2024 to 2026, during which she organized a 2-day regional meeting at the Field Museum. In 2026, she was elected to the MCAA Board for 2026-2028. She continues as a Research Associate at the Field Museum through 2029 and at the American Museum of Natural History through 2028. Building on this work, her fellowship has laid the foundation for a continuing research program on kinship, belonging, and the limits of genetic inference.
Museum DNA Clarifies a Critically Endangered Pangolin Species
A large international team including Field Museum researcher Anderson Feijó used historical museum specimens and DNA to resolve a long-standing taxonomic problem in Asian pangolins. The analyses, published in Communications Biology, show that Himalayan pangolins represent a distinct species, Manis aurita, separate from the Chinese pangolin.
Historic DNA from museum collections provided the decisive link between modern Himalayan animals and the species name established from older specimens. The distinction has immediate conservation relevance because pangolins are heavily affected by illegal wildlife trade. Better species identification can help determine where trafficked scales originated, guide anti-poaching efforts, and ensure that reintroduction programs return animals to the appropriate geographic populations.
Left: Manis aurita. © Tulshi Laxmi Suwal. Right: Anderson Feijó with a pangolin specimen in the Field Museum collections. © Bella Koscal, Field Museum
The distribution of power and inclusiveness across deep time
The distribution of power and inclusiveness across deep time
How can we tell from urban planning, architecture, and art whether or not an ancient society was autocratic or democratic? Gary Feinman (MacArthur Curator of Mesoamerican, Central American, and East Asian Anthropology) and colleagues recently published a study in Science Advances, drawing insights from 31 ancient societies across Europe, the Americas, and Asia across thousands of years.
They concluded that many ancient societies beyond Greece and Rome had inclusive political systems, despite widespread perception that these were the only two democratic societies in the ancient world. Contributing factors to and indicators of whether a society tended to be autocratic or democratic include the layout and orientation of public spaces and infrastructure; state revenue sources; depictions of rulers; and economic inequality. Hear from Gary on the national broadcast of NPR's All Things Considered, and read more from Earth.com and ColumbiaOne. Since its publication two weeks ago, the study has been featured in more than 125 articles, published in 11 languages.
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