David M. Carballo

David M. Carballo is a professor of archaeology, anthropology, and Latin American studies and assistant provost for general education at Boston University.

September 9, 2026

Editor's Choice/Geopolitics

Why Tamil Nadu Keeps Killing Its Own Projects

The Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) government has announced the cancellation of a series of projects initiated by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which governed Tamil Nadu from 2021 to 2026. Among them

Artificial Intelligence

OpenAI’s Mathematical Breakthrough Triggers a Battle Over Credit and Ethics

OpenAI has claimed to have solved one of the most celebrated problems in the history of mathematics: the “existence and smoothness” problem of the Navier–Stokes equations, one of seven Millennium Problems identified by the Clay Mathematics Institute, each carrying a

September 9, 2026

Anthropic Researcher Resigns, Warning AI Race Could ‘Gamble With Our Lives’

Artificial Intelligence

A young researcher at Anthropic, Jacob Coxon, has resigned from the company, warning that the race to develop increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems is

Germany’s Far-Right Surge Tests, But Does Not Upend, Democracy

Geopolitics

The German Embassy in Colombo has sought to clarify Germany’s political situation following news of a surge for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD)

Archaeological Advances in Deep Time Politics and Social Change

February 21, 2024

History

Western society is largely in the grips of an entrenched mythology that premodern non-Western states and empires were organized despotically, markedly different from how humans govern themselves in the contemporary West. There’s

Interpreting Communication Systems in Mesoamerican Societies

February 14, 2024

Education/Journalism

The modes of communication that a society uses can tell us a lot about its political structure. A research study we published in 2022 revealed distinct modes of communication and administrative recordkeeping in autocratic

Archaeology Is Flipping the Script on What We Know About Ancient Mesoamerica

June 29, 2023

History

Recent archaeology emerging from ancient Mesoamerica is flipping the script of public understanding about the people and institutions that inhabited this world: the evidence tells us that cooperative and pluralistic government was