The University of Bradford has secured almost £750K to safeguard skeletons
from world-renowned collections based in Bradford and London.
The project, funded by JISC will use 3D laser scanning, CT scans and high resolution photography together with new clinical descriptions and historical illustrations to create a web-accessible archive of photo-realistic digital 3D models of pathological type-specimens. The project began on 1st November and will be completed in July 2013.
The project aims to create a unique educational tool that will appeal to various disciplines including clinicians, medical trainees, medical historians, archaeologists, osteologists and palaeopathologists, as well as enriching the public understanding of anatomy and medical science.
Project leader Dr Andrew Wilson said: " The project will also place a crucial role in conserving a resource that is otherwise under threat from damage. Pathological specimens are often the most handled bones within skeletal collections and yet they are also the most fragile".
"Archaeological and historical skeletal collections are important because they offer the opportunity to observe pathologies in an era before effective therapy. The University of Bradford, Museum of London Archaeology, and Royal College of Surgeons of England house internationally important skeletal collections and will each be providing pathological type-specimens for the project".
The funding follows on from the successful JISC-funded pilot project entitled "From Cemetery to Clinic" which saw the rapid digitisation of bone lesions caused by leprosy (Hansen's Disease) from individuals excavated from the Medieval leprosarium of St James & St Mary Magdalene in Chichester in conjunction with Chichester District Museum.
The progress of this project can be followed on Twitter (@digidiseases), Facebook, and the project blog. A video of is also available on youtube. A story about the project also featured in the Telegraph & Argus on the 29th November.
1st December [top]
Bradford
student Emma Turner has won a 2-year sponsored free student membership of the
Royal Archaeological Institute (RAI). The sponsorship provides membership to the
Institute, access to the RAI lecture series and conferences, copies of 'The
Archaeological Journal' as well as access to the Society of Antiquaries of
London library. Emma said that the sponsorship will be beneficial for her
dissertation, providing access to information about recent research of relevance
to her studies. Emma is the second Bradford student to win RAI sponsorship, with
Joe France winning the award in 2010.
1st December 2011 [top]
Humans
may have undergone a gradual rather than an abrupt transition from fishing,
hunting and and gathering to farming, according to a new study of ancient
pottery. Researchers at the University of Bradford and the University of York
analysed cooking residues preserved in 133 ceramic vessels from the Western
Baltic region of Northern Europe to establish whether these residues were from
terrestrial, marine or freshwater organisms. The research led by
Carl Heron (Bradford) and
Oliver Craig (York) included an international team of archaeologists from
The Heritage Agency of Denmark, The National Museum of Denmark, Moesgård
Museum (Denmark), Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel (Germany) and the
Archäologisches Landesmuseum, Schleswig (Germany).
The project team studied pottery vessels from 15 sites dating to around 4,000BC - the time when the first evidence of domesticated animals and plants was found in the region. The research, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, is published online in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research team have found that fish and other aquatic resources continued to be exploited after the advent of farming and domestication, with pots from coastal locations containing residues enriched in a form of carbon found in marine organisms. Around one-fifth of the coastal pots contained other biochemical traces of aquatic organisms, including fats and oils absent in terrestrial animals and plants. At inland sites, 28 percent of pots contained residues from aquatic organisms, which appeared to be from freshwater fish.
Carl Heron, Professor of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford, said: "Our data set represents the first large scale study combining a wide range of molecular evidence and single-compound isotope data to discriminate terrestrial, marine and freshwater resources processed in archaeological ceramics and it provides a template for future investigations into how people used pots in the past".
Dr Oliver Craig, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at York, said: "This research provides clear evidence that people across the Western Baltic continued to exploit marine and freshwater resources despite the arrival of domesticated animals and plants. Although farming was introduced rapidly across this region, it may not have caused such a dramatic shift from hunter-gatherer life as we previously thought.
Article:
31 October 2011 [top]
The
Irish Times has published an article on October 20th regarding the work
carried out on the human remains from the Kilkenny Union Workhouse Famine
cemetery. This forgotten Famine burial site has yielded the remains of nearly
1,000 people, and a wealth of knowledge about how they lived and how they died.
Jonny Geber who has carried out the major osteological work, was part of the excavation team in 2005. He is currently studying for his PhD at Queen's University, Belfast with funding provided by Johan and Jakob Söderberg Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and Margaret Gowan Co.
Julia Beaumont, an AHRC-funded PhD student at the University of Bradford, has been analysing the bones and teeth of twenty individuals to establish the diet both before and during the Famine period, with results that fit the known history of Famine relief and the osteological features of scurvy. Her main focus is identifying Famine survivors in a 19th Century Catholic cemetery in Whitechapel, London in collaboration with the Museum of London Archaeology.
Julia and Jonny hope that by telling the story of the Famine victims and survivors some of their dignity could be returned.
26 October 2011 [top]
Bradford
student Debbie Hallam has been awarded the
Royal Archaeological Institute
Cheney Bursary to attend the Neolithic
Studies Group Conference. The meeting this year is being held at the British
Museum in November and is entitled 'Britain in 3000BC'. Debbie said that the
conference promises to be "really relevant and timely to my final year
dissertation topic, which is looking at a mid-late Neolithic pottery assemblage
from Cambridgeshire. Many of the speakers have produced books that have featured
in my reading and I am really looking forward to hearing their most recent
research". The bursary will allow Debbie to attend the meeting in London,
providing an opportunity that would not have been available otherwise.
25 October 2011 [top]