Building Capacity in Human Osteoarchaeology for an Archaeological Services Company

Archaeology is a field largely dominated by 'micro-organisations', 75% of which employ just ten or fewer staff. This means many, such as On-Site Archaeology Ltd., must look to specialist consultants for further expertise as their size limits the skill advancements that they can provide in-house. This project shows collaboration between the University of Sheffield and On-Site Archaeology Ltd that aims to help professional archaeologists to develop their knowledge base and to help commercial archaeology companies to expand their expertise. Specifically, the project aims to bring new archaeology graduates into the commercial sector whilst minimising the academic and business risk.

Under the supervision of Professor Andrew Chamberlain new graduate Lauren McIntyre, a recent Masters graduate in Human Osteology and Funeral Archaeology, conducted a post-excavation analysis of a specific important assemblage of human skeletal remains. Lauren then worked closely with osteoarchaeological and historical data sources to publish the new findings.

Under this project a new graduate could improve their knowledge and understanding of osteoarchaeology whilst On-Site Archaeology Ltd. improved their research capacity and gained a new bank of 'in-house' expertise to draw upon in the future.