The comparative collections are the heart of the Zooarchaeology Laboratory and its activities. They include 378 skeletons of recent specimens, representing fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals from North America, Middle America, South America, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Africa. The collection also includes several hundred archaeological specimens that are retained for comparative purposes. The lab controls large collections of archaeological faunal remains from several important sites (e.g., Naomikong Point and Juntunen, Michigan; Ayacucho, Peru; Chagha Sefid and Farukhabad, Iran; Hallan Chemi, Turkey). The collections also include a unique collection of northeastern North American mollusks and a synoptic collection of fish scales. Use this link to view an excel file of the Comparative Collection. A primary factor making the Zooarchaeology Laboratory at the University of Michigan unique and attractive to students and visitors is access to the very large and diverse nearby collections of the Museum of Zoology (e.g., the collection of bird skeletons is the second largest in North America and covers the world). The laboratory has several major outreach programs. First, it maintains an exceptional teaching collection for instructing students about the specialized skills needed to identify archaeological animal bones, usually in fragmentary condition. Second, it conducts an annual workshop to teach University students how to do zooarchaeology. This six-week class is very popular and is conducted on a voluntary basis. Third, because of the quality and uniqueness of the faunal collections, students and faculty visit from other universities and museums to use these collections for comparative purposes or to help identify their zooarchaeological remains. The Zooarchaeology Laboratory was renovated in the fall of 1996 with a grant from the National Science Foundation's program for Support for Systematic Anthropological Collections. The reviewers and the panel found the zooarchaeological collections and the work of the laboratory significant and worthy of support, granting $36,824 to provide new storage facilities and work areas. As a result, the archaeozoology laboratory is second only to the Smithsonian's zooarchaeology laboratory (directed by a graduate of the University of Michigan's zooarchaeology lab) in facilities and supporting collections.