The Berkeley Primate Skeletal Collection, housed in the Lowie Museum of the University of California, Berkeley, contains the skeletal remains of over 11,000 individuals, both humans as well as prosimians, monkeys, and apes. With prior NSF support, significant work has been done to remedy cataloging and storage problems which have existed since the inception of the collection in 1901. The team headed by Dr. Benedict now plans to complete the curation of skeletal remains recovered from archaeological contexts in both Egypt and California. At the completion of this project, the collection should be maximally useful to concerned scientists. Skeletal materials are of importance to a wide range of researchers. They allow reconstruction of human prehistory and allow scientists to trace both population movements and changes within single groups over time. They can be used to answer a number of important health questions which relate physical wellbeing including nutrition, crowding, and social organization. With such materials scientists can learn how changes in diet affect physical growth and mortality. It is possible to determine how inadequate nutrition at different ages affects growth and, for obvious ethical reasons, such studies can and should not be conducted on present day populations. This project is important because it will make a significant set of data available not only to anthropologists but also to a much wider range of interested scientists.
