National archaeology days

For the past two years The Centre for Human Bioarchaeology has opened its doors to the public as part of set events for National Archaeology Week.

During tours of the lab, families were given the opportunity to meet the museum’s Human Osteologists, ask questions and observe human skeletal remains.  The tours were open to both adults and children, allowing the latter to explore the body, compare human and animal bone and fill in work sheets.

Over the course of the tours visitors were encouraged to view the adult and juvenile remains on display, which were used to illustrate human growth and development, and the differences between male and female skeletons.

Additionally, a number of bones exhibiting forms of disease and trauma, such as syphilis, tuberculosis, arthritis and fractures, were also displayed and contextualised by the Centre’s staff.  This demonstration allowed visitors the opportunity to understand what it meant to live with disease in the past and to fully realise the extent of medical development over time.

All our open days have proven extremely popular with both children and adults who are frequently amazed by the amount of information that we can glean from the human skeleton and how valuable osteological research is to many areas of history and science.