Brief Communication: The Collection of Identified Human Skeletons Housed at the Bocage Museum (National Museum of Natural History), Lisbon, Portugal Hugo F.V. Cardoso* Departamento de Zoologia e Antropologia (Museu Bocage), Museu Nacional de Histo ´ria Natural, Lisbon, Portugal KEY WORDS skeletal biology; reference collections ABSTRACT A large collection of identified human skeletons curated at the Bocage Museum (National Museum of Natural History, Lisbon, Portugal) has remained in relative anonymity since its collecting proto- col was initiated in the 1980s. This collection originates from modern cemetery sources and is comprised of 1,692 skeletons with basic documentary data (age at death, place of birth, occupation, place of residence, and date and cause of death). At present, this information is more readily available for 699 individuals. The remaining 993 are in the process of being fully documented. The skele- tons consist largely of Portuguese nationals who lived in the 19th and 20th centuries (1805–1975) in Lisbon. Both sexes are equally represented, and ages at death range from birth to 98 years, including 92 subadults (<20 years old). Am J Phys Anthropol 129:173–176, 2006. V V C 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. This brief communication is intended to make the research community aware of the existence of a large collection of identified human skeletons at the Bocage Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. This museum is the Depart- ment of Zoology and Anthropology of The National Museum of Natural History and at present houses two identified human skeletal collections. These two collec- tions have been of fundamental importance to the history of Portuguese physical anthropology, and belong to an old tradition in Portugal of amassing collections of this type. Two major universities in Portugal (Lisbon and Coimbra) have more than one documented human skeletal collec- tion from cemetery sources, and in most cases the skele- tons were collected almost a century ago (Cunha, 1982). For example, the Anthropological Museum of the Uni- versity of Coimbra houses three identified collections, two consisting of skulls and one of complete skeletons, amassed between 1915–1942 (Fernandes, 1985). The Coimbra Collection is also the most well-known and one of the oldest collections. However, the precedent for documented skeletal collec- tions was started by a Lisbon physician, Francisco Ferraz de Macedo, in the late 19th century. The collection Ferraz de Macedo amassed comprised mostly skulls and was donated to the Bocage Museum shortly before his death in 1907 (Ferreira, 1908). Unfortunately, the Ferraz de Macedo Collection was almost completely destroyed in a fire that damaged the National Museum in 1978. The sec- ond collection, housed at the Bocage Museum, is com- prised of complete skeletons and was initiated by Luı ´s Lopes in the 1980s in order to replace the Ferraz de Mac- edo Collection. It came to be referred to as the Luı ´s Lopes Collection and has been accessible for research for the last 10 years, but its existence is not widely known. Accessibility is somewhat restricted, since the collection has not been totally curated. However, important im- provements in storage and cataloging have facilitated its availability for study. This collection is the focus of this communication. It is important to note that the Ferraz de Macedo Collection should not be mistaken for the Luı ´s Lopes Collection. In the past, international researchers described the Ferraz de Macedo Collection as an existing complete collection, probably because they were not aware of its destruction (Usher, 2002) or, despite being acquainted with the destruction, wrongly believed that the new collection is the remaining material of the Ferraz de Macedo Collection (Lubell and Jackes, 1997). Only remnants of the Ferraz de Macedo Collection still exist, and should be referred to as the ‘‘old Lisbon Collection.’’ HISTORY OF THE COLLECTION The Luı ´s Lopes Collection, also known as the Lisbon Collection (or the ‘‘new Lisbon Collection’’), has accumu- lated gradually since 1981, when the Bocage Museum asked the Lisbon City Hall for permission to collect indi- vidual remains that were abandoned by relatives and des- tined for communal graves at local cemeteries. Three cem- eteries in the city of Lisbon were used as sources for most of the skeletal material: Alto de S. Joa ˜ o, Prazeres, and Benfica. The practice at these cemeteries is to exhume Grant sponsor: Fundac ¸a ˜o para a Cie ˆncia e Tecnologia, Portugal; Grant numbers: SFRH/BD/4917/2001. *Correspondence to: Hugo F.V. Cardoso, Departamento de Zoo- logia e Antropologia (Museu Bocage), Museu Nacional de Histo ´ria Natural, Rua da Escola Polite ´cnica 58, 1269-102 Lisbon, Portugal. E-mail: hfcardoso@fc.ul.pt Received 16 June 2004; accepted 11 October 2004. DOI 10.1002/ajpa.20228 Published online 1 December 2005 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). V V C 2005 WILEY-LISS, INC. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 129:173–176 (2006)