SoS 197: Cara Wall-Scheffler talks Women, Energetics, and Hunting

Twice the Caras! Cara and Cristina interview Dr. Cara Wall-Scheffler, professor and co-chair of Biology at Seattle Pacific University and an affiliate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on the evolution of human sexual dimorphism, particularly in the context of balancing the pressures of thermoregulation and long-distance locomotion. She has been working on this problem for over 20 years. Her work demonstrates that different selection pressures have acted on men and women and that women, in particular, have a rare (among mammals) ability to work both efficiently (energy per unit of mass) and economically (total energy) when carrying loads. Women’s abilities are partly due to their relatively small body size, relatively high surface area, relatively broader pelves, and unique methods of thermoregulation. In addition to her research, Dr. Wall-Scheffler teaches courses in human physiology and evolutionary mechanisms on campus and at the Blakely Island Field Station. Find the publications discussed in today’s episode here: Anderson A, Chilczuk S, Nelson K, Ruther R, Wall-Scheffler C (2023) The Myth of Man the Hunter: Women’s contribution to the hunt across ethnographic contexts. PLoS ONE 18(6): e0287101. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287101 Wall‐Scheffler, C. and H. Kurki, Beyond sex, gender, and other dilemmas: Human pelvic morphology from an integrative context. Evolutionary Anthropology. 2023;1‐13. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.22001 Wall-Scheffler CM (2022). Women carry for less: body size, pelvis width, loading position and energetics. Evolutionary Human Sciences 4, e36, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.35 ------------------------------ Cara Wall-Scheffler’s email: cwallsch@spu.edu, Twitter: @WallScheffler ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cara Ocobock, Co-Host, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter:@CaraOcobock Cristina Gildee, SoS producer: Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee