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Museums pick over human bones
Jamie Welham and Neil Millard30 Jul 2009
Archaeologists at two London museums are warring over human remains.
The bones were discovered in Regent's Park by schoolchildren digging in the topsoil.
A forensic anthropologist from the Natural History Museum concluded they were bones from the Blitz. However, a week later Roy Stephenson from the Museum of London claimed they date back another 100 years.
The Royal Parks Agency is considering excavating the site after Mr Stephenson claimed the bones cam from the Victorian burial crisis when congested cemeteries were closed down in the 1840s. Soil from these redundant cemeteries was used to cover wartime rubble.
He said: "The Natural History Museum have got it wrong. I suspect these bones are not connected to the Blitz. I bet my bottom dollar there is a redundant cemetery near Regent's Park." The Natural History Museum expert believes the bones were buried in the rubble of houses bombed in Luftwaffe raids in 1940 and 1941.
