Scotland has its first curator of archaeological human remains

Scotland now has its first curator of osteoarchaeology through a new project aiming to enhance the care of and research into the country’s archaeological human remains.

Jess Thompson is responsible for the collection, which spans thousands of years, in her role at National Museums Scotland (NMS).

The collection includes the remains of about 2,500 individuals, dating from about 8,000 years ago to the medieval period.

Dr Thompson’s role includes enhancing the ethical storage and curation of the remains, making them accessible to researchers, and developing internal guidance for their study and display.

The post was made possible through the Scotland’s Archaeological Human Remains Collections (SAHRC) initiative, a collaborative project led by NMS with Historic Environment Scotland (HES).

Dr Thompson, who is based at the NMS Collection Centre in Edinburgh, said the job is an “exciting opportunity” for the collections.

She said: “Even though we’ve always had an archaeological human remains collection within National Museums Scotland, typically there has not been specific osteological expertise for curating and studying these human remains – they have been studied internally and also by external researchers for the whole time that we’ve curated them, but they haven’t had dedicated attention by somebody with osteological expertise until now.”

She added: “Thousands of years of human history and population and inhabitation of Scotland is represented within our collections.

“It is a growing collection and my job is to ensure that we are curating them to current, updated museum standards.

“One of the things that we are working on currently is improving the storage of the human remains, re-boxing and repacking where necessary.

“We’re also improving and updating our records, with the aim to make the archaeological human remains collections inventory accessible online for future researchers, and this should hopefully then galvanise more future, exciting research on our collections with external collaborators.”

Dr Thompson’s interest in the past was sparked in childhood when she was fascinated by ancient Egypt, and she completed an undergraduate degree in archaeology and a PhD in osteoarchaeology.

She has worked on many research projects and said she feels “extremely lucky” to have taken up the role at NMS.

The SAHRC project is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (part of UK Research and Innovation), through the Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science programme.