Research and Collections at the Virginia Museum of Natural History

Summary

The Virginia Museum of Natural History (VMNH) is an AAM accredited museum that serves as the state repository for natural history collections and occupies a purpose-built structure completed in 2007. As the state museum under the Secretary of Natural Resources, VMNH curates over 10 million archaeological, biological, paleontological, and geological specimens in trust for the citizens of the Commonwealth. The archaeology department currently curates over one million specimens. While the archaeology collection contains prehistoric and historic site assemblages from throughout Virginia’s past, VMNH has several significant assemblages from Paleoindian and Archaic contexts. Archaeology collections have been acquired through VMNH sponsored research, through the rescue of orphaned collections (primarily from universities), and from firms conducting CRM research and compliance projects. In addition, the archaeology department has developed skeletal reference collections for zooarchaeological research using the in-house skinning lab and dermestarium which includes extensive mammal, bird, bivalve, and gastropod collections and we are beginning to add herpetology and fish specimens. Visiting researchers can arrange for space to work and access to the research collections, reference collections, a rapidly growing research library with ca. 8000 volumes, prep lab, and a variety of microscopes and digitization tools.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Museum Meet and Greet

Keywords

Spatial Coverage