Gandra
Gandra (from the Portuguese word gândara, meaning poorly productive soil) is a small village located in the civil parish of Paredes, near Porto (Northern Portugal). Rurally characterised, some of the hard works caried out for centuries by the community were related with flax, corn and vineyard resulting in the development of dances and songs that greatly enriched the ethnographic collection of Portugal.
Over the last two decades, Gandra has been the target of an urban development which is significantly related to the Cooperative Higher Education Polytechnic University (Cooperativa de Ensino Superior e Politécnico, CRL - CESPU). CESPU offers a BSc and a MSc in Forensic Sciences, giving the students the opportunity to study and conduct research in forensic anthropology thanks to an osteological collection being curated at the institution.
Lab-based Field School 2024
In the summer of 2024, SFU field school students spent one week at CESPU where they carried out lab work in support of the curation of the documented skeletal collection housed at the institution, where they also completed skeletal and dental inventories and biological profile assessments.