Women in early hunter-gatherer groups regularly hunted big game alongside their male peers, indicates a study published on November 4 in the journal Science Advances. Researchers excavated a 9,000-year-old partial skeleton in the Andes buried with hunting tools and determined that the remains belonged to a young woman. The team also pored over previous reports of human remains from this time period, and found numerous other examples of women in North and South America buried with tools used in big-game hunting.

However, a number of researchers have speculated that some ancient societies might have had a more equal division of labor. “We think that people were engaged in more group hunting practices,” says Shannon Tushingham, an archaeologist and director of the Museum of Anthropology at Washington State University who was not involved in the research. “It would make sense that men and women and children were all dispatching these large animals.”

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From tracking to treatment to prevention, Washington State University scientists are expanding our understanding of the current COVID-19 crisis while helping lead international efforts to identify and stop the next potential pandemic.

More than 150 researchers are working on projects related to COVID-19 throughout the WSU system. Many, such as identifying differences in how people are responding to the pandemic, have present applications, while others are helping advance our knowledge of this disease so as to prevent a future, similar outbreak.

Infant health – Biological anthropologist Courtney Meehan is teaming up with researchers at University of Idaho, University of Washington and Tulane University to investigate maternal-infant SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk via breastmilk and breastfeeding as well as host immune responses to infection in breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding women and infants. Results will inform national and international guidance for infant feeding during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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