Our J.L. Shellshear Museum specialises in human, other primate and mammalian skeletal collections. It includes casts of human ancestors and other hominids.
Our J.L. Shellshear Museum focuses on human osteology, burial practices, forensic osteology, dental morphometrics and identification of skeletal and non-human bone.
Specific research projects at the museum include:
Our J.L. Shellshear Museum is named after Joseph Lexden Shellshear (1885-1958), a University of Sydney medical graduate who was the Research Professor of Anatomy at the University of Sydney from 1937 to 1948.
He is known for his work on the development of the peripheral nervous system on the study of the arterial blood supply to the brain and on the comparative morphology of the human skull and brain.
Shellshear donated to the Department of Anatomy a large collection of human brains (no longer extant), skull and brain casts, books, bound scientific papers and records relating to his research work.
This material was added to the department's osteological and zoological collections to form this museum, established and named in Shellshear's honour in 1959. Since then, much anthropological and archival material has been added to the collections.
The museum has been completely refurbished and has become an important research facility for anthropological, forensic and other research work.
Our J.L. Shellshear Museum is home to collections of mainly of human, other primate and mammalian skeletons as well as casts and endocranial casts of hominids.
These include human osteology including skeletal remains from the following regions: Australia, Melanesia, Oceania, Middle East (Pella collection) and a series of foetal skeletons and Zoological skulls and some skeletons of all classes of vertebrates with an emphasis on marsupials and primates.
Furthermore, it is home to casts of skulls and endocranial casts of hominids and other primates and reconstructions of Piltdown.
It also has archival material including books, papers and research records of J.L. Shellshear. N.W.G, and Macintosh collections relating to research and field work on the dingo, New Guinea Highlands, Australian Aboriginal fossil skulls, Aboriginal art and stone implements.
Additionally, there are collected notes and references of S.L. Larnach. Historical material relating to anatomy and the museum.
The Alan G. Thorne Fossil Cast Collection of Worldwide Variation
Dr Thorne donated his extensive fossil cast collection to the J. L. Shellshear Museum and it includes the largest collection of fossil casts of the human lineage in Australia as well as the widest range of African, Chinese and Indonesian fossil casts outside of Beijing and Jogjakarta.
The Man behind the Museum: Joseph Lexden Shellshear
This exhibition includes a broad range of material, from journal entries and personal photographs, to skull casts, diagrams, and specimens that help explore J. L. Shellshear’s key research, as well as his contribution to the study of the human brain.
Admission
External visitors are welcome by arrangement. Please contact the curator.
Cost
Admission is free to external individual visitors, anatomy students, bona fide researchers and scholars although some services, such as group visits, attract a fee.
Research access
Access to the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander skeletal collection may be given once permission is obtained from the relevant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. Access to non-Aboriginal skeletal remains may be given with permission from the curator and the Head of Discipline.
Denise Donlon
Museum Curator
Phone
+61 2 9351 4529
Mailing address
Room W601
Anderson Stuart Building
University of Sydney
Camperdown, NSW 2006
