Eastbourne Ancestors
The Eastbourne Borough Council Museum Service has been awarded a confirmed grant of £72,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for its exciting new project ‘Eastbourne Ancestors’ which will be the first of its kind in the UK.
There are over 300 skeletons in the Eastbourne Museum Service collection, most of them Anglo-Saxon from around 1500 years ago but some are possibly Neolithic, over 4000 years old. The aim of ‘Eastbourne Ancestors’ is to give an osteo-biography or story from the bones for each individual in the collection. This will involve detailed scientific analysis to determine the sex, age and stature of each individual where possible,l but could also tell us about their health, diet, social status, regional (or national) origins and perhaps how they died.
Eastbourne Ancestors is a project that will prove ground breaking to the Borough Council, Eastbourne Museum Service, the wider archaeological/museum community and most importantly the public.
The results will be collated and form the basis for a fascinating exhibition that will include reconstructions but along the way there will be a series of education programs and public participation in some of the processes. This is the first time such an extensive analysis has taken place on one collection and the discoveries will have an impact on the work of the Museum Service for years to come.
High quality training will be offered to the 150 or so volunteers who will work with Eastbourne Museum Service on this project and the training and learning opportunities for all elements of the project have attracted and engaged a broad cross section of the community.
To carry out the analysis, working partnerships with Universities such as Bournemouth, have been confirmed.These are institutions with some of the best reputations for their osteoarchaeological teaching and analysis in the country.
Eastbourne Ancestors will also be working with local schools and colleges, ESCC, Archaeological Units and Eastbourne Natural History and Archaeological Society (ENHAS). During the project schools, colleges and the public will be invited to a temporary lab, which will be set up in Eastbourne Town Hall, to take part in artefact conservation and environmental sampling processes alongside staff and volunteers.
Some of the finest practitioners of forensic facial reconstruction will also be on the team to produce the centrepieces of a stunning and thought-provoking exhibition at the end of the project. The ‘Meet the Eastbourne Ancestors’ exhibition will feature 3D and 2D forensic reconstructions so that people can see ‘in the flesh’ individuals from Eastbourne’s distant past. The exhibition will show what can be discovered about people from their bones and try to give these long dead people at least a little of their life story.
For more information about the Eastbourne Ancestors project contact Museum Services on 01323 415398 or email Hayley.Forsyth@eastbourne.gov.uk
