This article traces the scientific afterlife of the mummy Queen Henhenit from excavation and circulation to examination and display in twentieth-century Egypt. Believed to have the oldest vesicovaginal fistula in medical history, Henhenit’s body held large implications for global anthropology and the practice of medicine in a newly independent Egypt. Henhenit’s story illuminates material histories of race and reproduction. This article examines this fictive linking of ancient and living women’s bodies and how these women became objects of scientific observation and study, largely without their consent. It argues that pelvic bones and labor power of Upper Egyptian women took on new scientific and cultural meanings in the first half of the twentieth century as scientists and social reformers returned to the womb seeking answers to the “puzzle” of Egyptian racial origins and hopes to decrease the country’s infant mortality rate. As such, it reflects on the limits and limitations of thinking with women’s bodies as material archives of history.

Developmental theory has long emphasized a range of skills that young children need for healthy development across the life course. Nevertheless, most evaluations of early childhood programs and policies have focused on measuring a somewhat limited set of competencies. In this article, we explore this “streetlight effect” in early childhood intervention research and propose an initial set of skills that we argue should be prioritized alongside traditionally measured outcomes as targets of intervention during the preschool period (i.e., between ages 3 and 5 years). These skills, which we call the foundations of learning and development (FOLD) skills, include both well-studied and emerging constructs such as curiosity, creativity, self-regulation and executive function, critical thinking, perspective taking, and internal representations of self. To better understand FOLD skills’ potential as more practical, effective, and inclusive targets of early childhood programs and policies, we review research regarding each skill’s malleability, measurability, predictive validity, and universality. We end with a set of future directions for the field, including the need to (a) formulate a more inclusive taxonomy of FOLD skills that incorporates currently omitted competencies relevant to marginalized populations, (b) measure these skills in scalable and actionable ways, and (c) enhance or modify intervention strategies to optimize the development of these FOLD skills in the preschool period.