Hominid fossils usually represent rare and precious museum and university collection items. Since the discovery of the first hominid fossils in the mid-19th century, it became common to cast and distribute copies of such rare findings, which allow other researchers the comparison of morphology. Based on the example of the cast collection of the Department of Anthropology of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, this presentation tries to explore the history of collecting, studying and use of the cast collection.

Before a cast of a fossil can be created, a variety of processes of cleaning, preparation and restoration are necessary. In some cases, pieces or parts of the skull are separately casted allowing different reconstructions of possible orientations and places of the pieces in the skull. For studying details or inner structures of the cranial vault special techniques to produce endocasts had been developed. High quality casts of teeth are often used for scanning electron microscopy (SEM) research.

Molding of an original fossil is a very sensitive and time consuming process and usually performed by specialized trained and skilled preparators as well as by scientists themself. Techniques and materials for casting changed over the time. Whilst earlier molds and casts are produced predominately in plaster of paris, new high accurate materials such as silicon and resins are used. New techniques like 3D laser scanning and 3D models of CT image data allow further 3D laser printing of the digital objects.

Casts, however are not only an important source in research, they are favored objects in teaching and exhibiting human evolution and many museums and university institutions set up special collections of casts. In the last century various associations, museums and companies had started programs to make such specimens available to teaching and exhibiting.