CNC is just trying to get a head.
The College of New Caledonia headed down a better educational path, this week, when they took possession of a skull collection for classroom use. The hominid bone clones are casts made from real skulls found around the world over time, depicting some of differences between human and human-like species.
"It's rare for anthropology students at a community college to have access to a hominid skull set. Normally only larger universities have these types of resources," said Jennifer Reade, CNC anthropology instructor.
"Students can see and touch the differences in cranial and cheek bones, making it easier to understand human evolution."
Students enrolled in Anthropology 102, Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Archaeology, and other classes will now get up close and personal with the skulls starting this week. The public is also welcome to see the skulls for themselves, which are currently on display at the college's library until the end of November.
"This particular set was cloned from actual archaeological finds, which makes it more exciting," said Reade.
"The colour and pittedness allows students to learn about the aging process and the history of each excavation."
The CNC set includes an australopithecus afarensis skull, australopithecus aethiopicus cranium, astralopithecus boisei cranium, homo erectus skull, homo heidelbergensis cranium, homo neanderthalensis skull, cro-magnon cranium, and a homo sapien skull.
According to CNC personnel it allows local students to have some benchmarks in human evolution right in the palm of their present-day hands and "give students tangible items that accentuate the changes that occurred to the human skull through the evolution process."
