Paper short abstract:

Museum collections of human remains are under increasing demand for research access in addition to dealing with requests for the return of remains to their countries of origin. This paper discusses the Data Collection Project at the Natural History Museum which aims to gather standardised information from its human remains collections.

Paper long abstract:

The Natural History Museum in London holds a collection of over 20,000 sets of human remains. A Data Collection Project was initiated in 2008 with the aim of gathering standardised data from the collections, prioritising those deemed 'at risk', either through return to their country of origin or damage from repeated handling. The museum's collections are of particular use to the forensic anthropology research community as we hold known age and/or sex collections from a range of geographic areas, and a large proportion of remains are of recent origin (19th century onwards).

Data being collected includes measurements, basic demographics, taphonomy, pathology and trauma analysis, microCT and photography. It is hoped that this data will be eventually be placed into a virtual archive, enabling more streamlined access to the museum's collections for researchers and also reducing the handling load on fragile specimens.

The first set of data, gathered from a collection of remains from the Torres Strait Islands, will be presented and the experiences of the data collection and subsequent repatriation processes discussed.