Paleontological collections

The paleontological collections at the Museum of Evolution amount to approximately 300,000 specimens. Collection-based paleontological research has a 300-year tradition at Uppsala University, and our collections are still actively used in research and teaching by researchers from all over the world.

The Evolution Museum's collection of fossil vertebrates is the largest in Sweden, with a large number of scientifically described specimens. From a scientific historical perspective, the collections represent the emergence and development of vertebrate paleontology as a research field in Sweden. World-unique sub-collections include fossils from the USA, Svalbard, Madagascar, Germany, England, East Greenland and China. The fossil from China, the so-called Lagrelius collection, occupies a special position, as it came to Uppsala through a bilateral cooperation project between China and Sweden in the 1920s.

Our collections of Swedish invertebrate fossils reflect all areas with fossil-bearing layers in Sweden. The scientific weight of the collection is great and it contains fossils from several works that were fundamental to the knowledge of Sweden's oldest fossil-bearing layers. Key collections include samples from Cambrian layers in Lapland, Jämtland, Närke and Västergötland as well as historically and stratigraphically important samples from Ordovician layers in Dalarna, Uppland and Öland.

Important collections

Invertebrates

Our oldest invertebrate collections include fossils collected from 1650 onwards to the early 19th century, when paleontology emerged as a science in Sweden. The fossils in these old collections were often part of a larger collection of minerals and rocks, of which the collection belonging to Magnus von Bromell is typical. The collection acquired from the Royal Society of Science in Uppsala in 1860 laid the foundation for the fossil collections at the university, which included, among others, Swedish fossils described in 1818 by Göran Wahlenberg.

The collection grew during the early 20th century through research projects conducted by Professor Carl Wiman, Sweden's first professor of paleontology, and his students. One of these, Elsa Warburg, collected unique material from the Late Ordovician in Dalarna. Wiman herself described a large number of fossils from Uppland. Several pioneering works describing Sweden's oldest fossil-bearing layers from Jämtland, Dalarna, Västergötland and Öland were done at the museum during the 1940s-1960s. In recent years, additional fossils from Lapland, Jämtland, Dalarna, Västergötland and Närke have been added and the collection continues to grow. The museum's type collection for scientifically described evertebrate fossils currently has approx. 15,000 specimens.

Vertebrates

The museum's collection of fossil vertebrates is the largest in Sweden and includes specimens that are unique in the world. In the oldest collections there were only a few specimens of fossil vertebrates, and it was not until Carl Wiman's time that the core of the collection that the museum houses today was added. Between 1908 and 1929, a large number of fossils were collected from the Triassic and Jurassic layers on Svalbard, which were described in a large number of articles under Wiman's leadership.

During the years 1918-1921 Wiman made extensive finds of marine reptiles in the Cretaceous layers of Skåne, and at the same time he began to purchase mainly fossil reptiles from the USA, England and Germany. The aim was to build up a reference collection and obtain comparative material as none of this existed in Sweden. In 1921 a large collection of vertebrate fossils was acquired from New Mexico, in 1911 a collection of South American mammal fossils and in 1930 a collection of sub-fossils from Madagascar.

A unique collaboration with China began in 1919, and by 1924 hundreds of boxes of fossil mammals, but also dinosaurs, turtles and fish, arrived at Wiman in Uppsala. Among the treasures are teeth from Peking Man (now Homo erectus ). The collections from China were named the Lagrelius collection, after the patron Axel Lagrelius. The current building for the paleontological collections was built specifically to accommodate the Lagrelius collection.

• The Skåne Collection

• The Svalbard Collection

• The Sternberg Collection

• Grass Island

• The Madagascar Collection

• The Lagrelius Collection

Plant fossil

The museum's collection of fossil plants is relatively small. Two sub-collections worth mentioning are plant fossils from Svalbard collected during expeditions in the 1920s, and material of Pliocene age from southern Japan described by Rudolph Florin.