Graduates pay for skeleton storage

A YORKSHIRE university has created a new store for human skeletal remains recovered from archaeological digs – and it has been paid for by donations from past graduates.

The alumni fund telephone campaign has raised 25,000 for Sheffield University's new juvenile developmental osteology reference collection.

The store – in the university's department of archaeology – provides museum-standard storage space for skeletons of all ages ranging from 500 to 1,000-years-old.

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About 400 skeletons and associated research material have been put on display in the collection space – and they will be used for training masters and doctoral students.

The remains help the department's academic staff to understand how the human bone structure developed.

Professor Andrew Chamberlain, an anthropologist, said: "The storage facility will form an integral part of our planned centre for human bioarchaeology.

"It will make it much easier for researchers to carry out their studies of juvenile skeletons, which provide an important resource for research on skeletal growth and development in past populations."

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Miles Stevenson, director of development in the university's alumni department said: "We are most grateful to all our former students who donated.

"Their generosity speaks volumes for their affection for the university."