Caroline VanSickle (she/her)

@cvansickle.bsky.social

2226 Followers 581 Following

Feminist, paleoanthropologist, anatomists, previously known as cvans. I write my own posts without AI and will do my best to not share AI content. My Website: carolinevansickle.com.

Photographs of 23 pelvic bone fragments, brown in color, on a black background with a white bar representing 1 cm. Some elements (e.g., the left ischium) are repeated. The largest fragment in the center is a segment of the iliac blade. Photos taken by John Hawks and assembled by Caroline VanSickle. For educational use only.
Google image results for the word "paleoanthropologist". Many photos of white men holding fossils. Seven of the photos feature Lee Berger. Two feature women and 3 feature a non-white person. Others show fossils without a living person in the frame.
Screenshot from the Purdue OWL APA 7 citation page on Reference List: Author/Authors (link: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_author_authors.html). Text reads: [Section Title] Two or More Works by the Same Author in the Same Year [Section Text] If you are using more than one reference by the same author—or the same group of authors listed in the same order—published in the same year, first check to see if they have more specific dates ([noted in red font] this recommendation is new to APA 7). Works with only a year should be listed before those with a more specific date. List specific dates chronologically. If two works have the same publication date, organize them in the reference list alphabetically by the title of the article or chapter. If references with the same date are identified as parts of a series (e.g. Part 1 and Part 2), list them in order of their place in the series. Then assign letter suffixes to the year. Refer to these sources in your essay as they appear in your reference list, e.g.: "Berndt (2004a) makes similar claims..." Berndt, T. J. (2004a). Children’s friendships: Shifts over a half-century in perspectives on their development and their effects. Merrill Palmer Quarterly, 50(3), 206-223. Berndt, T. J. (2004b). Friendship and three A’s (aggression, adjustment, and attachment). Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 88(1), 1-4.
Screenshot of a page from the ebook of The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. The page starts with a drawing of a green bird on a branch, labeled “Anna's Hummingbird (female)”. Under the image, text reads: “Like most kids, I enjoyed drawing and I laid down enough "pencil miles" (a fun phrase I just learned in this book) to develop some skills at a young age. So by the time my own bird obsession started to take hold, drawing was a natural part of that. I consider drawing mostly a brain exercise. The hand that controls the pencil to make lines on paper is a small part of the whole process. You can learn how to draw, and then drawing anything becomes easier, but drawing is really a different way of seeing, converting something from three dimensions in the real world to lines on a two-dimensional sheet of paper.” From the book’s forward, written by ornithologist David Allen Sibley.
Screenshot of quoted post with the following text emphatically circled in pink: It is unethical to administer a placebo to infants instead of a vaccine that is known to work. 2/7.
Photo of a wooden display case with a glass top. Inside, the shelf is lined in red fabric. There are multiple broken animal bones and antlers arranged in four rows. In the middle of the display is a white card that reads “Raymond Dart’s Osteodontokeratic Culture of Australopithecus africanus (Makapansgat Grey Breccia)”. There is a second card in the top left of the display that isn’t readable but has black ink like drawings of what an Australopithecus using tools might look like. I don’t recall the exact text, but the card mentions that Dart’s ideas about early tool use inspired the famous hominin scene in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The photo has a warm filter to make up for the harsh overhead fluorescent lights. Taken at the Evolutionary Science Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Photo of my 3D scanning setup. A Mac laptop is open on a black topped wooden table. The screen shows an app that is black and red with multiple panels (this is the RevoScan 5 software). Next to it is a manual turn table that is black with silver spots on it. In front of the turn table is a device on a small tripod: the device is rectangular and black and has a single cord connecting it and the laptop. What’s not shown is the front surface that has camera and lights on it. This is the Revopoint Pop 3 scanner.
A page from the ebook version of "A Visual Atlas of Skeletal Growth and Development" by Kyra Stull and Heather Garvin. This page features an image of acetabular development from newborn to 17.5 years. Each of the 19 acetabulae shown are yellow 3D models based on CT scans and oriented in lateral views such that the image focuses on the acetabulum. The upper part of the ilium is cropped out in hipbones after the age of 1.5 years. The age labels and title of the image ("Acetabular Development") are light blue boxes with black text. The bottom of the page has the caption "Figure 4.1 Acetabular development, newborn to 17.5 yoa. Lateral views presented at each designated age."
White woman with short brown hair and wearing a teal T-shirt smiles and looks into the camera while holding open a book and pointing to the text at the bottom of the first page. Zooming in reveals she is pointing to her name, Caroline VanSickle, in the acknowledgments. Background: she is standing in a bookstore with the name of the store, Dog-Eared Books, on the wall behind her.
Manuscript Figure 2: Photographs of the SD-1663 right partial os coxae in different views. A) lateral, B) medial, C) anterolateral focused on the acetabulum, and D) Zoomed in view of the eroded acetabular margin that is also crushed superomedially. The fossil preserves most of the acetabulum, part of the superior pubic ramus, part of the ischial body, and part of the iliac blade. The greater sciatic notch is fully preserved and is a narrow, J-shape.
Infographic from the U.S. Surgeon General, with the title “Higher alcohol consumption increases alcohol-related cancer risk in women and men”. Includes a bar graph for women and men with each showing absolute risk of cancer as a percentage for individuals who have less than one drink a week, one drink a day, or two drinks a day. Both graphs show the risk increases with more frequent drinks. Above the Women graph it says “About 5 more women out of 100 would develop cancer due to the consumption of two drinks a day”. The message above the Men graph is the same, except the stat is 3 men out of 100.
Photo of me, a white woman with brown hair wearing a black and white blouse and black pants. I’m pointing to the fossilized skeleton of the Australopithecus afarensis known as Lucy. Her skeleton is displayed on a table in four black foam lined wooden boxes. I’m specifically pointing at her very complete pelvis and grinning (because I study hominin pelves and they are usually crushed).
Screenshot of the top of an article from American Scientist. The top of the image reads: "Biology Is Not Binary. By Kate Clancy, Agustin Fuentes, Caroline M VanSickle, Catherine Clune-Taylor. How scientists define sex has evolved over the centuries, and the concept is still incredibly difficult to pin down." The article is tagged: anthropology, biology, anatomy and includes links to various social media sites. The first paragraph of the article is visible, which reads, "In the sciences, we talk about sex. The question is, what are we actually talking about when we use that word?". Finally, there is a side bar that includes the following citation info: This article from issue March-April 2024, Volume 112, Number 2, Page 78. There is also a small image of the issue's cover, which features a pink-purple-white DNA model and the headline, "The dynamic world of DNA" under the magazine's title.
Screenshot of the AABA Statement in Support of Trans Lives. Full text available at https://bioanth.org/about/position-statements/aaba-statement-in-support-of-trans-lives/. It begins, "The American Association of Biological Anthropologists, the American Association of Anthropological Genetics, the Dental Anthropology Association, the Paleopathology Association, The PaleoAnthropology Society, the Biological Anthropology Section of the American Anthropological Association, and the Human Biology Association stand together against the escalating legislation and governance in the United States and across the globe that attacks the existence of transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse peoples. We affirm the power of all persons to make the ultimate decisions over what happens to our/their own bodies. We oppose legislation that is rooted in and maintains rigid binary conceptions of sex and gender which impact reproductive justice and access to care for everyone."
Screenshot of the computer game Midnight Rescue by The Learning Company. Depicts a robot and the sleuth character in a brick hallway. Next to them is a pair of double doors that have a sign above them reading "Auditorium". At the bottom of the screen is a blue panel with game information and options.