The archaeo-anthropological collection

The anthropological skeleton collection under the Forensic Anthropology Unit/Laboratory of Biological Anthropological with over 30,000 items is an invaluable resource. Its uniqueness globally is partly due its scope, and partly to the thoroughness of its archaeological documentation.

Over the last few years the collection has been radically reorganized. New storage equipment and complete digital categorization has been launched in close cooperation with the Cultural History Central Register under the Heritage Agency of Denmark. This is helping to make the collection more accessible to archaeological and museum institutions.

The collection provides the basis for comparative studies, and new research methods such as isotope analysis and DNA analysis are helping to reveal Denmark's prehistory.

The collection consists of skeletal finds from Danish archaeological sites, but also contains materials from countries including Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Egypt. The collection covers all of Denmark's prehistoric and historic periods from the Mesolithic to the 17th century.