FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas Museum Collections is giving the public a rare opportunity to view a vast array of prehistoric and historic artifacts, from the skull of a mammoth unearthed in east Arkansas to early University of Arkansas-related objects.

The collections staff will host a free open house and tour of the collections from 7-8:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 17 in the Arkansas Archeological Survey building, located at 2475 N. Hatch Ave. in Fayetteville. The building is just north of the Pauline Whitaker Animal Science Center at the Arkansas Agricultural Research and Extension Center. Refreshments will be served.

The event coincides with Arkansas Archeology Month. Mary Suter, curator of collections, and Nancy McCartney, curator of zoology, will lead the tours assisted by graduate students and work-study students employed by the Museum.

Miuseum Collections is a department in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. The U of A’s extensive museum collections include roughly seven million objects in the fields of archeology, ethnography, geology, history and zoology.

The collections include the largest and most significant Arkansas archeological material in the world. Particularly noteworthy are materials from Ozark bluff shelters and Mississippian Period whole vessels.

The Zoology Division contains more than 90,000 lots. The collections assist U of A classes in ornithology, ecology, herpetology, mammalogy and ichthyology.

The museum’s American pressed glass collection is one of the largest in the southeastern United States with more than 3,000 pieces.

For more information on the open house, call 479-575-3456, 479-575-3557 or 479-283-5720.