Blogs

A paper by Johnson et al. has been published arising from a project at the Natural History Museum, London, that examined the research potential of natural history collections and makes recommendations for strategic development to meet research needs and take advantage of the development of climate change work.  Reference.../more

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Kenneth G. Johnson, Stephen J. Brooks, Phillip B. Fenberg, Adrian G.
Glover, Karen E. James, Adrian M. Lister, Ellinor Michel, Mark Spencer,
Jonathan A. Todd, Eugenia Valsami-Jones, Jeremy R. Young, John R.
Stewart (2011) Climate Change and Biosphere Response: Unlocking the Collections Vault. Bioscience 61 147-153  DOI: 10.1525/bio.2011.61.2.10 

The UK Ministry of Justice introduced an interpretation of law a couple of years ago that meant that human remains excavated under licence were expected to be reburied within 2 years.  This has caused disquiet among archaeologists because it places constraints on retention for study in collections.  There has been press interest, summarised in a Nature blog.