History of the Collection of Physical Anthropology in the Natural ...

Bull. Soc. Suisse d’Anthrop. 8(1), 41-53.
afterwards reinterred in the present Israelitic Cemetery in Basel, after their anthropological
study by Roland Bay. The artifacts of all these sites are kept in the Historical Museum and in
the Archäologische Bodenforschung Basel-Stadt.
Due to lack of space and facilities for study, all the physical-anthropological collections were
transferred from the Völkerkundemuseum to the Naturhistorisches Museum in 1971, where
they are now kept in K2, a spacious, modern, bomb-proof and air-conditioned underground
storage area.
The Interkantonale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Anthropologie (IAG, Intercantonal Cooperative
for Anthropology), in which twelve Cantonal Services of Archaeology of Switzerland participated
(cantons AG, BL, BS, BE, FR, GR, LU, SG, SH, SO, TG, ZG), moved from Berne to
Basel in 1973 and was then led by Bruno Kaufmann, former Assistent of Roland Bay. Generally,
a shift towards an interest in historical anthropology could be observed throughout Switzerland.
With the accession of the above-mentioned collection from the Institute of Anatomy in 1975,
palaeopathology gained importance as one of the research topics with the cooperation of the
retired pathologist Siegfried Scheidegger (1903-1989, Professor of Anatomy and Pathology at
the University of Basel).
Three further more important collections have been incorporated from 1988 onwards:
1. In 1988 and 1989, following the planning of a park in the centre of the city, part of a former
cemetery of the City Hospital (Spitalfriedhof St. Johann) had to be excavated. The cemetery
was in use from 1845 to 1868. Of a total of 2561 deceased patients buried therein, 1061
skeletons were excavated, documented and measured. From these, 221 individuals were selected
for preservation and some 400 skulls and postcranial parts with pathological lesions.
40
30
females
males
20
10
0
0-9
10-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70-79
80-89
90-99
age unknown
age class (year)
Fig. 2: Demography of the Spitalfriedhof Collection (67 female, 126 male; 27 individuals with un–
known age).
43