An Inexpensive Method of Recovering Skeletal Material for Museum Display

Extract

The recovery of skeletal material for museum display quite often presents an engineering problem that is not appreciated by the archaeologist until after damage has been done. In too many cases, the archaeologist upon finding such a burial will immediately attempt to remove it, using whatever equipment happens to be at hand, without considering the cohesive properties of the matrix in which the skeleton lies or the stresses that the method about to be applied will exert. No matter how hard or solid the matrix may seem, its tensile strength will almost certainly be extremely low. Consequently, in under cutting any part, provisions must be made for its support. The method about to be described provides for this support and at the same time requires only a small amount of equipment usually obtainable at very little cost.