[Nhcoll-l] [EXTERN] Advice about the Use of Natural History Collections in Dissertation Project

Tue Jul 8 01:59:12 EDT 2025

Hi Emmaleigh,

as Andy said, it is a bit unclear what exactly the underlying problem is. If the institution you approached is outside of the US or in South Africa, shipping of the (rare) specimens might be a real issue, as Jacqui pointed out.

This especially, since this material is not only archaeological and South African, but also bovine, which puts a lot of red flags on such a shipment - even though most of them are not justified. However, if the material is to be shipped from South Africa, then the options the institution there might have to ship are limited, and the question would be if this option ensures proper import to the US through a designated port that is able to handle and deal with USFWS and APHIS requirements. There also might be legal limitation in the first place to send the material abroad, if this material comes from an iconic excavation site and is a national monument or of national importance.

If the "removing specimens from collections" to "a full body CT scanner at a nearby hospital" would means transporting the specimens basically within the same town from the collection to the hospital, it might be internal procedures of this institution that hinder this. And again, there might be several reasons for this - depending where this institution/collection is situated.

But there might be a completely different reason.

Being closely connected to the archaeozoological community via my partner, I know that some archaeozoological collections simply have become very restrictive spending their entire curatorial time for searching their huge collections for individual requests without even having any scientific benefit. Even though the necessary determination work for extracting the correct bone material is exclusively burdened to them.

If this a huge excavation site with a lot of material from diggings, the reason might simply that there are 30-50 moving boxes with bone debris. The material in there is sorted according to excavation layer, i.e. you cannot pick "the tooth or teeth" from the collection, but you need to search the entire wild mixture containing all sorts of bones and bones fragments. If this collection only has one curator, this person has to go through all those boxes, look up all bags, sort them and isolate and remove the desired bones. This may take 2-3 days.

Keep in mind: these collections are not assorted to species, but arranged as archaeological collections, i.e. according to site, layer, excavation campaign.

Therefore, it would be worth considering offering to travel to this institution and offer help to search and extract the correct material you want to work with from the excavation findings. This would have the advantage that you could then do the collections 2-D imaging with a simple camera is frequently done in zooarchaeology, or carry the bones to the hospital and - after you are done with your scanning - offer your support to this collection to sort the teeth back exactly to those bags where the teeth were isolated from. Which again is very time consuming.

Last but not least, there might be completely different reasons. Thus it might be worth reaching out to the zooarch list as well; this is the list server of ICAZ, the International Council of Archeozoology, and THE PLACE where the dear zooarchaeology colleagues discuss and seek advice.
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=zooarch

Hope this helps
Dirk

Am 07.07.2025 um 21:38 schrieb Emmaleigh Grady:

Hello,

My name is Emmaleigh Grady and I am a PhD student at Texas A&M University studying biological anthropology. I am currently entering the data collection stage of my dissertation, but have run into an issue related to the use of natural history collections. A mentor of mine suggested reaching out to this listserv to see if any members might be willing to work with me or could offer advice. I thank you in advance for any help you can give.

For my project, I aim to create an expanded and improved ecometric protocol based on bovid dental metrics and apply it to South African hominin sites. The first step in this project involves creating the ecometric model using modern African bovid specimens. Several of the metrics in my protocol will be measured with calipers, but an accurate crown height measurement for a hypsodonty index requires looking inside of the bone. I have considered many avenues for getting this image (medical, veterinary, dental portable x-ray machines, micro-CT scanners), but it seems the most efficient and cost effective method for obtaining 2-D images of many specimens quicky would be a full body CT scanner at a nearby hospital. The idea would be to place several specimens on the bed at a time and capture them all at once. Unfortunately, this would involve removing specimens from collections, and therein lies the issue.

This summer I secured funding for a pilot project to solidify this methodology to inform dissertation funding requests, but the museum I had approached wasn’t able to work with me. It is extremely important for me to conduct a pilot study to ensure the method is appropriate, functional, and to the practicalities surrounding it for planning purposes. Fortunately for a pilot study, I could accept a a sample size smaller than needed for dissertation and I would only require modern species.

As an biological anthropologist with a special interest in paleoanthropology I am very aware of the importance of natural history collections that they are irreplaceable. I have experience in several museums working with specimens of variable age, rarity, and fragility. I say this to emphasize that I understand the responsibility and care required to perform this project.

As a young researcher I am just beginning to  learn about the norms and limitations of working with institutions. Though my advisor and myself think this is a doable project, I wanted to reach out to the collections community before it became too late to pivot if needed. Again, I thank you and appreciate any help or advice you can give me. Also, feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the project.

Have a lovely day,

Emmaleigh Grady

PhD Student at Texas A&M University

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Stiftung Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels
Postanschrift: Adenauerallee 127, 53113 Bonn, Germany

Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts;
Generaldirektion: Prof. Dr. Bernhard Misof (Generaldirektor), Adrian Grüter (Kaufm. Geschäftsführer)
Sitz der Stiftung: Adenauerallee 160 in Bonn
Vorsitzender des Stiftungsrates: Dr. Michael Wappelhorst
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