EXTINCT MONSTERS

October 22, 2024 · 2:56 pm

Creating a home for the Chicago Archaeopteryx

*Archaeopteryx* banners adorn the Field Museum’s north entrance. Photo by the author.

August 17, 2022. I had just finished a very long drive from Denver to Chicago and wasn’t planning on coming in to the museum that day, but then I heard the news: the fossil was here. The acquisition of the 13th Archaeopteryx by the Field Museum was, by necessity, shrouded in secrecy. There was no reason I needed to know the exact arrival date until the last minute, but I didn’t want to miss the first look at such a historically significant fossil.

That’s how I found myself crammed into the Geology Department’s tiny X-Ray room with a dozen other people. Masks on tight, we all waited with bated breath as Preparator Connie Van Beek pulled up the first images of the slab on the computer. Most of the known Archaeopteryx specimens were commercially prepared before being acquired by museums, but the Field Museum’s new fossil was still sealed in the rock. Aside from the exposed wing feathers—the tell that this was indeed an Archaeopteryx—nobody knew what this block of limestone contained. Would it only preserve the limbs, like the Maxberg and Haarlem specimens, or was there a complete skeleton in there? As we waited for the X-Ray to appear, nobody dared utter the s-word (skull, that is).

Then the image blinked onto the screen. It was a bit faint (these are paper-thin bird bones, after all) but the entire thing was there. Four limbs, a torso, a tail and—folded back in the classic dinosaur death pose—the unmistakable smear of the head and neck. The room erupted into spontaneous applause.

After 1,300 hours of meticulous fossil prep, the Chicago *Archaeopteryx* is now on display. Photo by the author.

Two years and one month later, the Chicago Archaeopteryx became a permanent resident of Evolving Planet, the Field Museum’s paleontology exhibition. I had the pleasure of serving as the Exhibition Developer for this project, working alongside a brilliant and creative group including Associate Curator Jingmai O’Connor, preparators Akiko Shinya and Connie Van Beek, and all my colleagues in the Exhibitions department. This post is a peek into the thought process behind our new Archaeopteryx display.

Hey, look at me!

A *Parasaurolophus*-eye view of the Evolving Planet dinosaur hall. Photo by the author.

Once it was decided that the Archaeopteryx should be incorporated into Evolving Planet (rather than being displayed somewhere else in the building) the first order of business was figuring out where exactly to put it. Evolving Planet is arranged chronologically—visitors start at the origin of life 4.5 billion years ago and work their way up to the present. Hailing from the Late Jurassic, Archaeopteryx would need to go somewhere in the central dinosaur hall, which covers both the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods. But unlike the rest of the exhibition, the dinosaur hall isn’t strictly chronological. There are multiple competing organization schemes in there—the murals on the walls are in Jurassic and Cretaceous clusters, but the central corrals are arranged by evolutionary groups (except when they’re not). And then there’s the big case of marine fossils that span the entire Mesozoic.

I may have lost some sleep over this. Should Archaeopteryx be near the Jurassic Apatosaurus and Stegosaurus (even though it lived on the other side of the world), or near the other theropod dinosaurs? Or maybe it should be with the marine fossils, since it was found in marine limestone. Ultimately, I realized that there was no perfect way to introduce a substantial new display into a space that had already been renovated multiple times, but it wouldn’t ruin visitors’ experience if Archaeopteryx didn’t fit seamlessly into the established flow.

A replica tree and an animated mural beckon visitors to the *Archaeopteryx* display. Photo by the author.

There was a more pressing issue influencing where to place Archaeopteryx: the fossil itself is really small. The bird, now splayed across an 18-inch flat slab, is no larger than a pigeon. It may be the most complete Mesozoic dinosaur in the Field Museum’s collection and a contender for the best-preserved Archaeopteryx yet found, but its size makes it easy to overlook alongside a half dozen giant skeletons. When Senior Designer Eric Manabat and I first met to discuss the new project, we immediately agreed that the display would need a physical presence comparable to the other dinosaurs.

With that in mind, we decided the best place for Archaeopteryx was the largest open space in the dinosaur hall. That way, we could maximize the amount of interpretive content surrounding the fossil, and also create displays that would signal to visitors that this was something worth paying attention to.

We propose that our *Archaeopteryx* may have been swept out to sea in a storm. My headcanon is that this tree was struck by lightning during the same event, and has the scar to prove it. Photo by the author.

As designed, the Archaeopteryx display has two layers of interpretation. The outer ring, visible from anywhere in the dinosaur hall, showcases the world the first bird lived in. A physical Brachyphyllum tree full of Archaeopteryx models stands in the foreground, and an animated backdrop fills in the rest of the Solnhofen habitat (please notice the coniferous branches peeking into the corners of the animation, which are meant to be an extension of the model tree). We used the habitat reconstruction as the “attractor” because visitors frequently cite these immersive recreations as their favorite parts of our paleontology exhibits.

Casts of *Caudipteryx*, *Anchiornis*, and others tell the story of how birds continued to evolve after *Archaeopteryx*. Photo by the author.

Once visitors enter the exhibit space, the focus changes to Archaeopteryx itself: how it died and was preserved, how it fits into our understanding of dinosaur evolution, and what’s special about this particular fossil. We wanted to create an enclosed, intimate space so visitors could get up close to the fossil and admire it’s delicate details. A program of changing lights helps direct attention to features like feathers, teeth, and claws. And for visitors who prefer a tactile experience, we have a touchable copy of the fossil at three times actual size.

Recreating the World

A moment from the animated mural. © Field Museum.

Much like the permanent and traveling SUE exhibitions, a new reconstruction of the star dinosaur was a major part of the Archaeopteryx project. This time, we worked with the animation studio PaleoVisLab to create the definitive Archaeopteryx and a world for it to inhabit. I joined Jingmai O’Connor, Latoya Flowers, Wesley Lethem, and others in weekly meetings with paleontologist Jing Lu and animation lead Heming Zhang for nearly a year as they brought the first bird to life.

The PaleoVisLab team actually created two animations. The first is a simulated “hologram” which illustrates the taphonomic circumstances that resulted in such a perfectly preserved fossil. This animation resides in a pepper’s ghost chamber, designed and built by Latoya and Wesley. It was fun integrating a 160 year-old magic trick into our exhibit, and I appreciate the cosmic coincidence that the pepper’s ghost technique was first popularized within a few years of the discovery of the first Archaeopteryx.

A prototype of the pepper’s ghost chamber. Getting the image to float in space correctly took months of iteration. Photo by the author.

The second, far more daunting animation was the moving mural. We knew we wanted a big, impressive recreation of Archaeopteryx in its world, but we fretted about how it would fit among the century-old Charles Knight murals that adorn the walls of the dinosaur hall. We wanted something that looked dynamic and modern, but it needed to coexist respectfully with the classic oil paintings, and not attempt to overshadow them. I think we managed to toe the line, and the completed piece even has a few nods to Knight’s Solnhofen scene (which is still on display). The pair of Compsognathus in the lower left corner is the most obvious example.

A 3-D printed *Archaeopteryx* in the early stages of painting. Photo by the author.

Heming could not be restrained from from putting astonishing (one might say insane) amounts of detail into every animal and plant in the scene. I particularly remember the day he turned up for the weekly call and enthusiastically showed us that he had modeled both male and female dragonflies, with hundreds of individual lenses on their compound eyes and even different genitalia. Every creature—from the tiny Homoeosaurus scurrying across the sand to the Aspidorhynchus that jumps out of the water for less than two seconds—was carefully reconstructed from the skeleton up. Naturally, the Archaeopteryx got the most attention. Our model is specifically based on new information gleaned from the Chicago specimen—note the shape of the head in particular.

The physical bird models in and around the tree are 3-D prints of the digital version, which was a new approach for us. This solved a problem we had on the SUE project, where we had different artists simultaneously creating images in different media that somehow had to match. But the 3-D prints also created new challenges: the spindly legs and toes were too fragile to actually hold the model’s weight, so we had to come up with some creative ways to mount them in the tree. Janice Lim constructed the mounts and painted the models so that they perfectly match their animated counterparts. And while I’m shouting out artists, illustrations by Ville Sinkkonen, Gabriel Ugueto, Liam Elward, and Scott Hartman also appear in the exhibit.

These fighting birds poised above the entrance are my favorite part of the exhibit. Photo by the author.

For me at least, the primary goal of the Archaeopteryx display was to get as many visitors excited about this rare fossil as possible. Given that it doesn’t have the size, name recognition, or ferocious appearance of T. rex or Spinosaurus, getting people to pay attention to a little bird with a hard-to-pronounce name wasn’t a sure thing. The solution was to create as many “entry points” as possible. Maybe you’re interested in animals and how they behave. Maybe you’re interested in history, and how our scientific understanding of the world came to be. Maybe your curiosity is activated by seeing something in motion, or by touching things, or by encountering something unique and special. My hope is that whatever interests you bring with you, we’ve created a space where there’s something for you to get excited about.

Past Worlds at NHMU is breathtaking

*Gryposaurus* makes an impression amidst other dinosaurs in Past Worlds, the NHMU paleontology exhibition. Photo by the author.

I visited the Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU) earlier this week, and I need to take a moment to applaud its exceptionally beautiful and well-conceived paleontology hall.

NHMU is part of the University of Utah. It resided in its original home on the Salt Lake City campus from 1969 to 2011, when the museum relocated to a new, purpose-built facility in the foothills near Red Butte Canyon. Several design firms contributed to the Rio Tinto Center (the name for the building in which the museum resides), but the permanent exhibitions—including the paleontology hall—are the work of good ol’ Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA). For the unfamiliar, RAA is a dominant player in the field of museum design that is often associated with projects of profound cultural and historic significance, like the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. RAA has fewer natural history projects in its lengthy catalog of commissions. Near as I can tell, their only other paleontology-centric project was the fourth floor fossil halls at AMNH. I’m not a huge fan of many of the design choices made in those halls, so it’s interesting to see what 20 years and a different client can mean.

Large windows and frequent access to the outdoors are standout features of the NHMU building. Photo by the author.

The 44,000 square feet of permanent exhibitions at NHMU flow linearly across the building’s five floors, which visitors can explore from bottom to top or top to bottom. Conceived as a single experience, the exhibitions don’t feel like discreet units—instead, they flow seamlessly into one another as visitors climb or descend along switchbacking paths through the building. I want to call attention to the design of the museum as a whole because it manages to be both stylish and meaningful. Unlike some other museums with bold architecture (looking at you, ROM), the building manages to make a visual statement without hindering visitor experience or usable exhibit space.

Past Worlds as seen from the Jurassic. Photo by the author.

The paleontology hall—entitled Past Worlds—occupies about half of the total exhibit space, and fittingly it is the first area visitors encounter if they choose to start at the bottom. The hall is open and spacious, but visitors cannot access the entire exhibition at once. Instead, they follow a zigzagging, switchbacking path, with new sight lines opening up as they go. Monumental elements—namely, the dinosaur skeletons, wall murals, and immersive dioramas—are encountered multiple times from different perspectives.

One example is a life-sized diorama of the lake bottom where fossils of the Green River Formation were preserved. Visitors first see this tableau from an “underwater” perspective. Then, some time later, visitors encounter this same scene again, now looking down from the “surface.” Elsewhere, dinosaur skeletons that can be seen from different vantages are interpreted in multiple ways, depending on what else visitors can currently see and compare them to. This series of reveals and payoffs reminds me of the carefully constructed experiential narratives in theme parks, but precisely applied to help visitors learn about ecology and geology. It’s really cool.

*Uintatherium* and *Patriofelis* foreground multiple layers of mounted skeletons. Photo by the author.

The hall’s color palate is a mix of earth tones and grayscale. Some of this comes from the mounted skeletons, which range from the charcoal gray of Morrison fossils on one end of the space to brown and beige Cretaceous and Cenozoic fossils on the other. Four giant, vertically oriented murals also contribute to the look and feel of the space. Corresponding to the Jurassic, Cretaceous, Paleogene, and Quaternary areas of the hall, these black-and-white murals focus on the flora and landscapes of these eras—you have to look closely to find the animals. I couldn’t find a label identifying the artist, but the murals’ dark foregrounds and bright backgrounds remind me of the original King Kong (or if you want to be fancy, the engravings of Gustav Doré).

Local tyrants *Lythronax* and *Teratophoneus* get the most attention, but an obligatory cast of the Wankel/Nation’s *T. rex* is also present. Photo by the author.

As suggested by the murals, the overall space is arranged chronologically. However, the switchbacking path through the exhibition means that visitors start in the recent past and move back to the Jurassic, before reversing direction and moving forward in time. While a time axis is present, Past Worlds is less about presenting a comprehensive narrative of the history of life and more about zeroing in on a few particular ecosystems that once existed in Utah. These include the Morrison Formation of the Jurassic, the Cedar Mountain, Kaiparowits, and North Horn Formations of the Cretaceous, the Green River Formation of the Paleogene, and the recent Ice Ages. These deep dives into specific habitat groups are relatable, digestible, and easy to contrast with one another and the modern world—indeed, I have been not-so-subtly trying to coax the paleontology exhibits at my own institution in the same direction.

The mounted skeletons have fared well, considering that they’re all in open air and easy to reach. Photo by the author.

Past Worlds features hundreds of fossil specimens, nearly all from Utah or adjacent states. There are more than 40 mounted skeletons, many of which were firsts for me—I’ve never seen a mounted Marshosaurus, Akainacephalus, or Patriofelis before! Notably, all but one of the standing mounts (the Gryposaurus) are casts. This is not due to a lack of material—most of the mounts are based on fossils from NHMU’s collection. Clearly, somebody made the decision to draw a firm line between the real specimens and the dynamic reconstructions—a line that other museums have traditionally blurred. I think it’s fair for some visitors to be disappointed by this, but using casts allows for some lively and energetic displays. The group of Allosaurus swarming a Barosaurus mired in mud is particularly evocative (and incidentally, the way the sauropod’s tail sweeps under the path and curls overhead is so cool). Besides, there are plenty of real fossils to see, many of which are very strikingly displayed. I was impressed by an in situ hadrosaur skeleton under the floor, which seamlessly merges with a vertical case of Kaiparowits fossils that appears to be rising out of the ground.

I’m not sure how easy this is for scientists to access, but it sure looks neat. Photo by the author.

Individual labels are commendably brief, and tie each fossil to the larger stories being told. I was pleasantly surprised that the ID lists the discoverer and the preparator of each fossil, when known. Most labels also include a skeletal diagram showing where individual bones fit into the larger skeleton, but these were frustratingly small and almost impossible to make out (a problem shared with similar graphics at NMNH).

There are plenty of touchable displays, but media is used sparingly. A highlight is a four-part program in which scientists propose different possible causes for the Cleveland-Lloyd assemblage of Jurassic fossils. Visitors are then prompted to vote on which hypothesis is most convincing. The program is several minutes long, but visitors appeared to be staying for the entire thing, and causing a traffic bottleneck in the process.

As you can assuredly tell, I was extremely impressed by NHMU. Meaningful design and a thoughtful approach to visitor experience combine with accessible interpretation and some extraordinary fossils to create a truly outstanding example of a natural history exhibition.

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Filed under dinosaurs, exhibits, fossil mounts, mammals, museums, reviews

June 16, 2024 · 2:56 pm

The Dueling Dinosaurs: famous fossils in an open lab

A partially prepared tyrannosaur skeleton in a field jacket. Photo by the author.

Earlier this month, I had the a chance to see the “Dueling Dinosaurs,” which debuted at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science (NCMNS) in April. Consisting of virtually complete skeletons of a tyrannosaur and Triceratops preserved side-by-side, this fossil is either the find of the century, or just another example of overhyped, overstudied, and overpriced Hell Creek dinosaurs—it depends on who you ask. But NCMNS has made it more than that, placing the fossil at the center of an ambitious project to improve science literacy by removing all barriers to the process.

Commercial collector Clayton Phipps discovered the skeletons in 2006, on private ranchland in Montana. Having never worked on anything so large before, Phipps teamed up with the Black Hills Institute for the initial preparation and assessment of the fossil. The skeletons were put up for auction in 2013, resulting in what has become a familiar din of competing voices. The sellers heralded the rarity and quality of the fossil, proclaiming it to be a clear example of dinosaurs that perished while locked in combat. Paleontologists countered that a fight-to-the-death scenario was unlikely, and without scientific study, the circumstances of the dinosaurs’ demise could not be known. Furthermore, in the event that the fossil went to a private buyer, there would be no opportunity to study it. The so-called Dueling Dinosaurs were poised to become yet another example of a high-profile specimen sold into private hands, where they could never contribute to scientific and public knowledge.

As it happened, the auction was a failure, and bidding never reached the reserve price. Behind the scenes, however, the Friends of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science—a non-profit organization that supports the state-run museum—had put forth an offer of six million dollars for the fossil. To be clear, a mid-sized public museum like NCMNS absolutely does not have $6 million on hand for specimen acquisition. The funding came from private donations solicited by the Friends organization.

A partially prepared *Triceratops* skull in a field jacket. Photo by the author.

The offer was accepted, but there was another hurdle: a legal challenge over ownership of the land the fossil was found on. In Montana, surface rights (ranching, farming, etc.) and mineral rights (oil, coal, uranium, etc.) to the same parcel of land can be split among different owners. When the Dueling Dinosaurs fossil was collected, arrangements were made with surface landowners Lige and Mary Ann Murray, but other parties had partial claim to the mineral property. Those individuals—Jerry and Bo Severson—sued, arguing that fossils are minerals and should belong to them. In 2020, the Montana Supreme court ruled that for legal purposes, fossils are “land” and therefore belong to surface landowners. With the sale completed, the next stage in the Dueling Dinosaurs story could begin.

Concept render of Dueling Dinosaurs lab and exhibit by HH Architecture. Source

Having already pushed for the acquisition of the fossil, NCMNS Head of Paleontology Lindsay Zanno took charge of the project. Her vision was to create a completely open fossil preparation lab. Rather than being behind glass, the scientists working on the Dueling Dinosaurs would be available for conversation with the public whenever the museum was open. As Zanno explained in an interview, “I conceived the Dueling Dinosaurs project to take the public on a live scientific journey, to illuminate how science works, to show who scientists are and what we look like, and to increase trust in the scientific process.”

To accomplish this, NCMNS hired local firm HH Architecture. They designed the state-of-the-art lab to Zanno’s specifications within the Nature Research Center, the second wing of NCMNS that opened in 2012. The addition also includes two flanking exhibit galleries and street-facing, floor-to-ceiling windows, which allow passerby to see into the lab.

LED images of the three hypotheses cycle across a central display in the first gallery. Photo by the author.

Visitors enter the Dueling Dinosaurs exhibit on the Nature Research Center’s ground floor. The first gallery introduces visitors to the ecosystem of Late Cretaceous Montana. Green panels and walls situate visitors in this verdant environment. After passing small cases with turtle, crocodile, fish, and plant fossils (the purchase of the Dueling Dinosaurs included access to the discovery site, but these are on loan from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science), visitors reach a large display introducing the central mystery of the Dueling Dinosaurs. The exhibit presents three possible scenarios that could have resulted in the dinosaurs being preserved together: duel (a fight to the death), dinner (the tyrannosaur perished while scavenging on Triceratops), or disaster (the animals died separately and were washed together in a flash flood). Color-coded LED outlines of the dinosaurs illustrate the three scenarios in front of an illustrated backdrop.

While these scenarios are presented as being equally plausible, most paleontologists agree that the “disaster” scenario is the likeliest of the three. The real purpose of the exhibit’s presentation is to introduce visitors to the process of stating a hypothesis and finding supporting evidence. Remember, a major part of the rationale behind acquiring the fossil and creating this is exhibit was to show the public what scientists do, and why scientific conclusions are trustworthy. This inquiry-based display attempts to coax visitors through the process of considering the available evidence, and letting it lead them to a conclusion.

Projected images and text augment a sculpture of the fossils. Photo by the author.

Visitors’ next stop is the lab itself, but traffic is controlled by a roughly 4-minute media presentation at the far end of the first gallery. Relief sculptures of the Dueling Dinosaurs skeletons at 50% scale are the centerpiece of this display. Projected images to the left and right—and on the sculpture itself—illustrate the story of where the fossil came from and what scientists hope to learn from it. Certain moments, like a laser scan across the fossil, suggest at least a little inspiration from the SUE show at the Field Museum. The animated tyrannosaur and Triceratops that appear throughout this and other media pieces in the exhibition were created by Urvogel Games, the people behind the dinosaur simulator game Saurian.

Once inside the lab, nothing but a short plexi barrier separates visitors from the preparators at work. As a former/occasional fossil preparator myself, I can tell you that this space is really, really impressive. It’s not enormous, but it’s big enough to comfortably hold four large jacketed matrix blocks. A 10 ton capacity crane looms overhead, and pneumatic hook-ups for air scribes and dust collectors are within reach throughout the space. I was particularly impressed by a rig that can rotate large jackets on their vertical axis, allowing them to be prepared from multiple directions. No less than seven preparators have been hired to staff this lab, so visitors should find people working all the time. Part of the preparators’ responsibility is to be available to answer questions. Typically, one person is posted by the barrier while the rest of the team works in the background.

An overview of the public lab. Photo by author.

The second gallery space is not about the Dueling Dinosaurs specifically, but about the tools and techniques paleontologists use to learn about the past from fossils. The most prominent displays are a cast of Nothronychus (a dinosaur described by Zanno and colleagues) and a nest of oviraptorosaur eggs from Utah. Visitors can touch the tools used by fossil preparators, perform a simulated CT scan of a Thescelosaurus skull, and look through a microscope at growth lines in a sectioned dinosaur bone. I was told this gallery wasn’t quite finished, which might be why it felt unfocused to me. A more prominent header and summative statement at its entrance about the purpose of the gallery might help.

“Science has an accessibility problem,” Zanno said in an interview, “and mistrust in science is rising. We have to bring science out of the back corners and basements…and let our community see who we are and what we do.” The Dueling Dinosaurs exhibition has done exactly that—visitors could not be closer to the process of preparing and studying these fossils without being handed an air scribe. So how is that working out?

Visitors explore interactive stations in the second gallery. Photo by the author.

I detected a hint of frustration coming from the team members I spoke to. Too many visitors are fundamentally misunderstanding what they are seeing in the lab. They assume the preparators are actors and the fossils are fake, and are often incredulous when told otherwise. The concept that a museum is a place where new science happens is also surprising to a plurality of visitors. One strategy the team has employed is to set up a table of matrix and fragments for the preparator on interpretive duty to sort through. That way, they are clearly working on something when visitors enter and are less likely to be mistaken as an actor or volunteer. Still, if visitors are struggling to recognize real scientists in a real lab when presented with them, the need for access to science in action may be even greater than anticipated.

This might be a “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail” situation, but I think some reframing of the exhibition and how its presented could go a long way. Right now, the experience is titled “Dueling Dinosaurs,” which is undoubtedly compelling, but elicits its own set of expectations and assumptions about what visitors will see and do. Why not present the experience as what it really is—an opportunity to meet real paleontologists in their place of work? Would it be possible to reverse the order of visitor flow, so they see the gallery about how paleontology is done first, then visit the lab, then finish by learning about the Dueling Dinosaurs as a case study?

A media-based interactive allows visitors to apply different color patterns to an animated *Triceratops*, rendered in real time. Photo by the author.

Preparing the fossil is expected to take about five years. The goal is to keep the skeletons in their death positions and eventually display them in relief, somewhat like the model in the media presentation. How much matrix to remove is a moving target. The tyrannosaur’s skull has already been CT scanned multiple times with disappointing results. More matrix will need to be cleared to get a good image of the inside of the skull. Meanwhile, extensive skin impressions are preserved across both skeletons, and the team hopes to leave much of this in place. The process is being slowed somewhat by the need to scrape and chip away irreversible glue that was applied by the original preparators.

Aside from determining whether the dinosaurs actually died fighting (don’t count on it), one of the most anticipated answers the project is expected to provide is the identity of the tyrannosaur. When the fossil was at the Black Hills Institute, Pete Larson concluded that it was a Nanotyrannus—a controversial name applied to fossils that many paleontologists think are actually juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex. Indeed, when the fossil was up for auction, it was marketed as a young T. rex, probably for the sake of name recognition. The NCMNS team will eventually weigh in after studying the skeleton more thoroughly.

The lab itself is expected to remain in place once the Dueling Dinosaurs are prepared. The museum already has other very large fossils awaiting preparation.

If you’re able to visit Raleigh, I highly recommend visiting the Dueling Dinosaurs, the open prep lab, and the rest of NCMNS (the museum is free). You can also monitor the preparation process online. Many thanks to Jennifer Anné, Paul Brinkman, Elizabeth Jones, Christian Kammerer, and Eric Lund for speaking to me about the exhibition. Any factual errors are my own.

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Filed under dinosaurs, education, exhibits, marginocephalians, museums, NCMNS, opinion, reviews, science communication, theropods

June 12, 2024 · 1:37 pm

Where did the Field Museum’s fossil mounts come from?

Last year, I posted a quick and dirty table showing when each of the major display fossils at the Field Museum was first exhibited. This is a quick and dirty followup, based on a suggestion Lukas Rieppel made at a convening of historians of paleontology last week.

These maps illustrate where the Field Museum’s star fossils were collected. I’ve separated them by time chunks to make them easier to look at. Note that these time ranges cover year of first display, which is usually but not necessarily close to the year of collection or acquisition. Lines connect the fossils’ origins back to Chicago. Gray lines indicate fossils collected by Field Museum staff. Red lines indicate fossils that were purchased, traded for, or inherited (e.g. the transfer of the University of Chicago geology museum’s collections to the Field after its 1948 closure). Pink lines represent casts—in most cases, Field Museum scientists were involved in studying the specimens, but the originals are at other institutions.

Illustrations by Julián Bayona, Tracy Heath, Jagged Fang Designs, T. Michael Keesey, Michael Taylor, and Steven Traver, via phylopic.org.

In this first map, we see fossils coming to Chicago from two directions. There are purchased composite mounts of well-known mammals from Ice Age Europe—the Irish elk Megaloceros and the cave bear Ursus speleaus. Then there are the fossils collected by Elmer Riggs in the great plains and Rocky Mountain regions of the United States. Upon being hired in 1898, Riggs spent his first few field seasons in areas that were already known to yield impressive, display-caliber skeletons. He collected brontotheres in the White River badlands of South Dakota, then moved on to sauropod dinosaurs in the Morrison Formation of western Colorado.

Illustrations by Julián Bayona, William Gearty, Scott Hartman, T. Michael Keesey, Thomas W. LaBarge, Steven Traver, and Michael Tripoli, via phylopic.org.

In this map, we start to see the results of the Captain Marshall Field Expeditions to Argentina and Bolivia (1923–1927) on display. South American fossil mammals would become a specialty of Riggs and the Field Museum. The museum also collected early Paleogene fossils from Colorado, including the pantodont Barylambda. They traded with other museums for famous or important species to round out the exhibits—for example, a bison from the La Brea Tar Pits and an “American zebra” from the Hagerman quarry in Idaho.

Illustrations by Julián Bayona, Dmitry Bogdanov, Matt Celeskey, Andrew Farke, FunkMonk, T. Michael Keesey, Roberto Días Sibaja, and Antoine Verriére, via phylopic.org.

The collections inherited from the University of Chicago make a big impact on the midcentury map. All of the Field Museum’s display skeletons of Permian animals from Texas and South Africa were part of that acquisition. Meanwhile, the board of trustees arranged to purchase a Canadian Daspletosaurus from the American Museum of Natural History, which was displayed alongside a Lambeosaurus collected by Riggs and company in 1922.

With the exception of a new cast skull for Apatosaurus, no significant changes or additions were made to the fossil halls between 1961 and the early 1990s.

Illustrations by dannj, Tasman Dixon, Ivan Iofrida, Scott Hartman, Tracy Heath, T. Michael Keesey, Matt Martyniuk, Mathew Wedel, and Emily Willoughby, via phylopic.org.

The last 30 years have seen the greatest range of origin points for fossils on display: everything from Arctodus, collected just a couple hundred miles away in Indiana to Cryolophosaurus from Antarctica. This map also shows a near-total change in focus from Cenozoic and Permian animals to Mesozoic dinosaurs. And while earlier dinosaur displays were mostly from North America, there has been particular interest in this period in dinosaurs from the global south.

I’m going to stop there and leave the rest to you, dear reader. Beyond my brief notes here, what other trends do these maps suggest? What connections to global or local political or cultural trends do you see? Are there other museums where you know or suspect a different pattern? Feel free to comment!

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Filed under collections, dinosaurs, exhibits, field work, fossil mounts, history of science, mammals, museums

May 6, 2024 · 9:19 pm

The Field Museum’s other Archaeopteryx

Many superlatives apply to this gorgeous fossil. Photo by the author.

Earlier today, the Field Museum revealed the Chicago Archaeopteryx to the world. Named for the city it resides in (as is traditional for Archaeopteryx fossils), this is only the 13th specimen of this famous taxon yet discovered, and a contender for the best-preserved. The fossil is currently on display for a limited preview—it will go back to collections for further research on June 9, then return as part of a larger, permanent exhibit toward the end of the year.

Archaeopteryx is famous for being the fossil that proved Darwin right. When he laid out his case for evolution by natural selection in On the Origin of Species (published in 1859), Darwin primarily relied on observations of living organisms, but predicted that transitional forms between groups should appear in the fossil record. Then, just two years later, the first Archaeopteryx fossil turned up—a reptile with feathers like a bird. Archaeopteryx has been synonymous with evolutionary science ever since, and it’s had its part to play as our understanding of the relationship between dinosaurs and living birds gradually solidified. Today, we know that Archaeopteryx wasn’t the first feathered dinosaur, but it was the earliest known dinosaur to use its feathers for flight, rather than for insulation or display. Archaeopteryx fossils have proven stubbornly rare, however, so each individual specimen is celebrated.

The Chicago specimen is not, in fact, the first Archaeopteryx to be displayed at the Field Museum. For two weeks in 1997, the museum hosted a very limited engagement of the fossil now known as the Munich Archaeopteryx. The Munich specimen was found in August of 1992 and was the 7th individual to be discovered. Like all other Archaeopteryx fossils, it was collected in Bavaria, Germany in a spoil pile of Solnhofen limestone. Slabs of this rock have been used for centuries as roofing tiles and for lithographic printing. Indeed, the Munich Archaeopteryx was collected by Jürgen Hüttinger, a quarry worker employed by the Solenhofer Aktien-Verein stone company.

Aktien-Verein owned the quarry and thus, owned the fossil. The company contacted paleontologist and Archaeopteryx specialist Peter Wellnhofer, and loaned the fossil to the Munich Paleontological Museum for preparation and study. The Archaeopteryx was prepared by Ernst Schmieja under Wellnhofer’s supervision. It proved to be nearly complete, but only included the back part of the skull. Both the slab and counterslab were recovered—the skeleton is preserved in the slab but the feather impressions are more visible on the counterslab.

Slab and counterslab of the Munich *Archaeopteryx* on display at the Field Museum. Photo by John Weinstein, © Field Museum.

Aktien-Verein allowed the fossil to be displayed locally for several years, starting in 1993. But in 1997, plans materialized for the Archaeopteryx to take a little trip. Wellnhofer accompanied the fossil to Chicago so it could make an appearance at the 57th annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP), which the Field Museum was hosting that year. The fossil was on public display from October 4th through 19th, and Wellnhofer gave a public lecture on the 18th. While the visit was extremely short, it was also historic: this was the first time any Archaeopteryx fossil had ever left Europe. Many of the mostly North American paleontologists attending SVP that year had never seen an Archaeopteryx in person before.

Entrance to *Archaeopteryx*: The Bird that Rocked the World exhibition. Photo © Field Museum, courtesy of K. Mazanek, CC BY-NC 4.0.

The Exhibitions Department, for their part, went all-out in making the fossil’s brief visit special. The Archaeopteryx was displayed in a small gallery on the museum’s main level, past an impressive facade of angular blocks that recall slabs of Solnhofen limestone. The exhibit was officially titled “Archaeopteryx: The Bird that Rocked the World,” but only the name Archaeopteryx appeared over the entryway.

Once inside the darkened space, visitors could immediately inspect the slab and counterslab, which were mounted under a vitrine on an angled platform. Visible through the fossil case was Charles Knight’s Solnhofen mural from the 1920s, which was brought out of storage for this exhibit. Cases to the right and left contained small Solnhofen fish fossils and casts of Compsognathas and the Eichstätt Archaeopteryx.

Visitors gather near Greg Septon’s *Archaeopteryx* reconstruction. Photo © Field Museum, courtesy of K. Mazanek, CC BY-NC 4.0.

Another highlight was a new life-sized model of Archaeopteryx, created by Milwaukee Public Museum taxidermist (and accomplished falconer) Greg Septon. This Frankenstein-like creation was assembled from pelts and feathers from seven bird species, including a cormorant and a partridge. The teeth were sourced from a rainbow trout.

Referencing the bird’s German origin and leaning into it’s difficult-to-pronounce name, the museum held a family event on October 18 entitled “Archaeoptoberfest.” Kids could make kites, see other bird specimens, and hear the story of Icarus (really) under the feet of Ernestine the Brachiosaurus.

The brief visit to the Field Museum was the Munich Archaeopteryx‘s only time leaving Germany. Two years later, the Munich Paleontological Museum assembled the funding (nearly 2 million marks) to purchase it from Aktien-Verein. Today, it remains part of the Bavarian state collection and is on display in Munich.

Unlike the Munich specimen, the Chicago Archaeopteryx is a permanent addition to the Field Museum’s collection. You can learn more about its journey so far in Patti Wetli’s in-depth reporting for WTTW. Come see it before June 9 if you can!

References

Archaeopteryx: The Bird that Rocked the World. Earth Science News October 1997.

A rare bird indeed will visit Field Museum. Chicago Tribune Sep 30, 1997.

Maes, N. Rare bird fossil has a Field day. Chicago Tribune October 3, 1997.

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Filed under dinosaurs, exhibits, FMNH, museums

April 12, 2024 · 7:33 pm

Review: the new Peabody Museum

*Tylosaurus* and *Archelon* skeletons soar overhead in the Peabody Museum’s brand-new lobby. Photo by the author.

For decades, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (YPM) was a museum frozen in time, with no comprehensive updates to its paleontology halls since the 1950s. Then, around 2010, serious discussions began about overhauling the dinosaur and fossil mammal exhibits. Fundraising started in 2015, and in 2018, the museum announced that it had received a $160 million donation—enough to renovate not just the paleontology halls, but the entire museum. YPM closed its doors at the beginning of 2020, and on March 26 of this year, it reopened to the public once again.

Technically, this is a soft opening. The third floor—which houses the museum’s classic taxidermy dioramas—has not yet opened, and a scattering of cases around the museum are empty as of this writing. Still, there is plenty to see: during the renovation, YPM gained a new, multi-story lobby (connecting the museum to the academic building next door), as well as new collections facilities, classrooms, and 50% more exhibit space. And most importantly, the paleontology halls are open and just about complete.

A *Geosternbergia* cast demonstrates its quad-launching technique in the museum’s entryway. Photo by the author.

The remaking of the YPM exhibitions was a collaborative effort between internal staff (led by Kailen Rogers, Chris Norris, Susan Butts, Jacques Gauthier, and others) and two outside design firms—Centerbrook Architects and Planners provided the high-level design of museum and surrounding area , while Reich + Petch worked on specific exhibit elements and graphic design.

I spent a few hours at YPM last week, and the new halls were absolutely worth the wait. What I found most striking is that the paleontology halls feel at once new and familiar. The dimensions of the dinosaur and fossil mammal halls (officially, the Burke Hall of Dinosaurs and A World of Change) remain identical, and they are still anchored by Rudolph Zallinger’s magnificent fresco murals—The Age of Reptiles and The Age of Mammals. Charles Beecher’s relief mounted Edmontosaurus was left in place, and the overall layout and flow of the spaces have not been radically altered. On the other hand, white walls and new windows and skylights have transformed what had been fairly gloomy spaces into bright, open expanses. There are dozens of new specimens on display, in addition to plenty of returning ones. And a third gallery has been added to the paleontology wing: called The Human Footprint, this space explores how humans have interacted with the natural world over the past hundred thousand years or so.

The remounted *Stegosaurus* looks back toward Zallinger’s *Age of Reptiles*. Photo by the author.

The primary themes of the paleontology exhibits are displayed at the entrance to Burke Hall: “life affects the environment and the environment affects life” and “extinctions change everything.” Much like Deep Time at the National Museum of Natural History, YPM’s exhibits emphasize that the evolution of life on Earth did not occur in a vacuum, but as part of a continuously changing global system. This narrative does have a time axis—visitors follow along from the Edicaran to the present day—but the precise devisions of geologic time are often de-emphasized in favor of the broad environmental transitions that triggered evolutionary innovations.

This presentation of the evolution of life compliments the existing Zallinger murals. Painted between 1942 and 1967, these are among the most iconic images of prehistoric life ever created. Although some of the animal reconstructions are outdated, Zallinger was in other ways ahead of his time. Rather than giving the geologic periods hard borders, he artfully wove the sections together so that each one fades imperceptibly into the next. The viewer can see that the flora, fauna, and climate are changing over time, but it’s a gradient, not a ladder. Incidentally, it was not a given that the Zallinger murals would be preserved. Great credit is due to the YPM team for not only retaining the murals, but utilizing them as a key part of the new exhibition’s narrative.

Brontosaurus reclaims its place as the centerpiece of the dinosaur hall. Photo by the author.

One clear advantage of a wall-to-wall renovation is that the exhibits are much better organized than before. In the old dinosaur hall, visitors encountered an essentially random succession of displays: from modern sea turtles to Triassic trees and from a Cretaceous mosasaur to a Quaternary mastodon. Now, the displays run chronologically, and more or less in sync with the Zallinger mural. Visitors can follow the history of life in the sea on the west side of the hall, and the history of terrestrial life on the east side. I also suspect that placing Brontosaurus and a brontothere as central anchors in their respective halls was a deliberate choice.

A very large *Megacerops* stands on a central platform in the reimagined Cenozoic hall. Photo by the author.

Research Casting International remounted several historic skeletons with characteristic artistry and skill. I will have a separate article about the mounted skeletons sometime soon, but the remounts are Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, Deinonychus, Archelon, Moropus, Megaloceros, a mastodon, and a dodo. Brand new mounted skeletons include Tylosaurus, Poposaurus, and a Geosternbergia family of four (plus a few secret mounts outside the neighboring Marsh Auditorium). At least fifteen existing mounts have returned. As Postdoctoral Fellow Advait Jukar explained to me, the goal for the mounted skeletons was to portray “living, breathing animals, rather than looking like they’re posing for a portrait.” For example, the aggressive rutting posture of the Irish elk was directly inspired by the classic bull moose diorama at the American Museum of Natural History.

Mounted skeletons aside, there are some really extraordinary fossils in these halls. Some of the specimens that caught my eye include a geode bird egg with an embryonic skeleton inside, the bizzare Arsinotherium from Egypt’s Fayum region, a Nothrotheriops with patches of hair and skin, and the early Jurassic dinosaurs Podokosaurus and Anchisaurus.

Remounted Irish elk and mastodon in the Human Footprint gallery. Photo by the author.

While many of the fossils speak for themselves, the halls are also populated with several new models and replications, which imbue the extinct species on display with life and personality. The towering Gastornis created by Blue Rhino Studio is the clear standout—I like that it looks like its gazing longingly back toward the Mesozoic dinosaurs in the adjacent hall. Other highlights include a slab of Edicaran weirdos and the mammal Rapenomamus attacking a Psittacosaurus at the feet of Brontosaurus (I would have liked to see a baby sauropod as the prey, but maybe that would be too much for squeamish visitors).

Meanwhile, the YPM team made some selective forays into the realm of media and digital interactives. Most (possibly all?) of these take the form of slideshows on large touchscreens. These are an effective way to condense a lot of information into a limited space, and allow for some visitor choice in what topics interest them. I thought an interactive where visitors could explore the propagation of horses, humans, and tomatoes around the world was particularly well done.

*Gastornis* is a highlight of the Cenozoic Hall. Photo by the author.

I would expect an institution like Yale to be protective of its legacy and history, so I was surprised to find a prominently placed rebuke of superstar 19th century paleontologist O.C. Marsh in the dinosaur hall. As Advait described it, this is an “and” statement: Marsh was instrumental in shaping our understanding of prehistory and evolution and he collected from Native land without permission, looted graves, and was academically dishonest.

The call-out of Marsh wasn’t the only unexpectedly progressive element in the new exhibits. A brontothere fossil is interpreted with a poem by a trans teenager, which criticizes imperialistic scientists for imposing their way of knowing upon the world. Elsewhere, a display of fossils from the Santa Fe Formation in Argentina is accompanied by printed labels solely in Spanish—perhaps a statement about whose voices should be heard when interpreting the natural heritage of a given region. Natural History Conservator Mariana di Giacomo told me that these displays are part of an effort to include a wider range of perspectives in YPM exhibits. Other examples include musings from artist Ray Troll on being a “highly motivated fish” and psychologist Eli Lobowitz’s take on why kids love dinosaurs.

*Deinonychus* and *Poposaurus* are the largest saurian carnivores on display. Photo by the author.

My critiques of the new paleontology halls are pretty limited. There are more typos and inconsistencies in the labels than there ought to be, particularly in the age ranges given for certain specimens. I overheard multiple visitors concluding that the Edmontosaurus skeleton was a T. rex, and I suspect an image of Tyrannosaurus placed in front of the Edmontosaurus is to blame. In one area, the writer uses terms like “stem reptile,” “early stem land egglayer,” and “stem amniote” as common names for various species. Even with some specialized knowledge I don’t understand what distinction they were trying to make, and I can’t imagine those terms are helpful for most visitors.

The most pervasive issue is the inconsistent quality of 2-D life reconstructions used on graphics throughout the halls. With a few exceptions, it appears that the exhibition’s creators used whatever images were available, including stock renders and illustrations pulled from Wikipedia. For many people (especially children) unaccustomed to interpreting bones, life reconstructions can be more meaningful than the actual fossils. It’s worth budgeting for original, quality artwork whenever possible. Put that $41 billion Yale endowment to use!

A graphic with a particularly uninspired illustration from a stock image provider. Photo by the author.

Speaking of Yale’s effectively bottomless pockets, the best news about the new YPM is that it’s 100% free. This is an excellent precedent to set: there’s no better way to welcome a broader audience and remove barriers from engagement with science than doing away with admission fees. I hope other museums follow YPM’s lead on this front and work to free themselves from reliance on admission income.

No, the Hall of Human Origins doesn’t downplay climate change

The south-facing entrance to the Hall of Human Origins. Photo by the author.

As covered in the previous post, the National Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Human Origins, which opened in 2010, is an exceptionally well-conceived and well-crafted exhibition. In certain circles, however, there has been a persistent strain of criticism that I feel like I would be remiss not to address.

Shortly after the Hall of Human Origins opened, articles in the New Yorker and ThinkProgress called attention to the fact that the exhibition was created with $15 million from David Koch (the full title of the exhibition is the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins). Koch, who died in 2019, and his brother Charles are probably best known as billionaires who support a range of libertarian causes, including right-wing political candidates and climate change deniers. Their fortune comes from Koch Industries, a massive energy (read: oil) and manufacturing conglomerate.

David Koch bankrolled socially and environmentally destructive policies for decades, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that few individuals have left such a damaging anti-science legacy. But credit where it’s due: the Koch Foundation has also supported museums, public broadcasting, and other institutions associated with education and the arts. Many of these contributions are related to Koch’s personal interest in fossils, especially dinosaurs and human ancestors.

The Humans Change the World sub-section. Photo by the author.

In a ThinkProgress piece published a few months after the Hall of Human Origins opened, author Joe Romm suggested that the exhibition’s creators downplayed the seriousness of anthropogenic climate change at Koch’s behest. According to Romm, the hall’s “huge flaw is that it leaves visitors with the distinct impression that human-caused global warming is no big deal.” Additional articles in ThinkProgress, Hyperallergic, and Equinox made similar accusations. Each article zeroed in on a recurring theme in the exhibition’s text: that hominin evolution was driven in part by a need to adapt to a changing climate. As Ryan Little put it in Hyperallergic, the exhibition “craftily insinuates that fluctuating climates, whenever, wherever, and however they occur, are a source of astonishing human ingenuity, while also managing to suggest…that in the grand geological scheme of things, climate change is no big deal.”

There is absolutely a conversation to be had about the pros and cons of museums accepting money from problematic sources (NMNH caught heat a few years earlier when it accepted funding and specimen donations from Kenneth Behring). And there is always cause to be vigilant about corporate interests making their way into public institutions. Nevertheless, a recent re-visit to the Hall of Human Origins has convinced me that any critics suggesting that the exhibition downplays climate change—or that Koch had any influence over its content—are fundamentally misguided.

One of multiple graphic panels describing present-day climate change, why it’s happening, and how we know. Photo by the author.

There are two issues in play here. First, I think the authors are missing the bigger evolutionary picture. There is nothing new or untested about the concept of a connection between the changing Earth and the evolution of life on it (that is, interaction between the geosphere and biosphere). Examples are seemingly innumerable. Hoofed mammals evolved long legs for running and large, grazing teeth when grasslands replaced forests in the Miocene. Radiations of new species evolved when North and South America collided, allowing animals access to new habitats. Dire wolves got smaller when the climate got colder and food was harder to come by. And that’s just in the last 30 million years. Why wouldn’t human ancestors evolve in response to a changing environment, when it’s been a primary driver of evolution throughout our planet’s history?

The second issue is that it’s plainly incorrect to say that the Hall of Human Origins does not address recent anthropogenic climate change, or clearly state its cause. There is an entire 1,500 square foot sub-gallery called “Humans Change the World,” which investigates how garbage, livestock, habitat destruction, and yes, carbon dioxide emissions are damaging the planet. The famous hockey stick graph of global temperature, with its spike in the last century, appears at least three times, including at the exhibition’s south-facing entrance. The exhibition states, repeatedly, that “the global climate is warming as a result of increasing levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases generated by human activities.”

A media piece with the caption, “We’ve produced so much CO2 that we’ve warmed the planet.” Photo by the author.

It would be difficult for a visitor to explore the Hall of Human Origins and miss the references to anthropogenic climate change. It would be even more difficult to conclude that the exhibition is somehow putting a positive spin on it—the images of belching smokestacks and piles of garbage are not subtle. And yet, that is exactly what multiple authors have alleged, as recently as 2019. This is fascinating to me, because it speaks to the power of the narratives visitors bring with them to any museum experience.

In the previous post, I mentioned an evaluation of the Hall of Human Biology and Evolution at AMNH, which found that visitors were imposing teleologic narratives onto the exhibition, in spite of deliberate efforts to counteract this. Visitors expected evolution to be a linear, progressive process, and they unwittingly interpreted what they’re seeing in a way that matched those expectations. Perhaps a similar phenomenon is occurring in the Hall of Human Origins. Many of us are used to seeing Koch’s name associated with aggressive lobbying against climate change mitigation. In that context, the narrative that an exhibition bearing his name would have a similar message is compelling, even sensible. But it isn’t borne out by the actual content on display.

At the heart of the Deep Time exhibition, a theater demonstrates how humans are causing unprecedented change to the planet, while also highlighting potential solutions. Photo by the author.

Again, it’s reasonable to be wary of corporate interests making their way into public institutions. Perhaps museums that accept funding from questionable sources have a responsibility to go above and beyond in assuring their audiences that those funding sources are not influencing exhibition content (or anything else they produce).

To their credit, this seems to be something NMNH has taken very seriously. As discussed, the Hall of Human Origins devotes considerable floorspace to the message that climate change is an unavoidable part of humanity’s legacy. And in 2019, the museum went even further. The massive paleontology exhibition known as Deep Time was also funded in part by the Koch Foundation, and bears David Koch’s name. Here, a central overlook (visible from everywhere in the hall) is devoted to the message that human industrial activity is warming the climate, and that this change comes with dire consequences. Even more so than in the Hall of Human Origins, this statement is presented in clear, matter-of-fact language. The centrality of this location and its proximity to the dinosaurs makes the climate narrative unmissable.

As the third most-visited museum in the world (behind the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay), NMNH is uniquely situated to reach audiences that may never have seen the evidence for climate change presented in a clear, non-political context. They have clearly risen to the occasion, and I just think they deserve some credit for it.

References

Elbein, A. 2014. The right’s dinosaur fetish: Why the Koch brothers are obsessed with paleontology. Salon.

Levinthal, D. 2015. Spreading the free-market gospel: What’s new and interesting about the Koch brothers approach to funding academics. The Atlantic.

Scott, M. and Giusti, E. 2013. Designing Human Evolution Exhibitions: Insights from Exhibitions and Audiences. Museums and Social Issues 1:1:49–68

Sideris, L. 2019. The Last Biped Standing? Climate Change and Evolutionary Exceptionalism at the Smithsonian Hall of Human Origins. Equinox Publishing.

1 Comment

Filed under anthropology, Deep Time, education, exhibits, mammals, museums, NMNH, opinion, science communication

January 12, 2024 · 7:28 pm

The Hall of Human Origins, 14 years later

A bronze *Homo heidelbergensis* figure crouches over a hearth, offering visitors a piece of meat. Photo by the author.

I don’t know how well you remember the twenty-aughts, but it was a high point for conflict over teaching evolution in the United States. Thanks to lobbying by the Discovery Institute and others, denial of evolution had become an ideological litmus test for conservatives. Organized strategies to impose religious fundamentalism on public school classrooms cropped up nationwide, and these efforts were taken to court on multiple occasions. It was in the midst of all this that the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) developed and opened its Hall of Human Origins—in sight of Capitol Hill, no less.

In this politically charged climate, one might imagine an exhibition about human evolution would need to be highly didactic, or even combative. But rather than taking an antagonistic stance, the Hall of Human Origins leads with a question: what does it mean to be human? The exhibition presents fossil evidence for how the human species came to be, but also invites visitors to make connections with their own lives and experiences. Fourteen years out from the hall’s March 17, 2010 opening, it’s instructive to look back at the exhibition’s development. How did this visitor-centric interpretive approach come to be, and how has the museum’s audience responded to the exhibition? And in hindsight, would the exhibition’s creators do anything differently?

Origins

More than 50 million visitors have passed through the Hall of Human Origins, but lead curator Rick Potts jokes that about a million of those visits should probably be attributed to him. Indeed, the exhibition and its unique interpretive approach have been on his mind for decades. He first formulated the question “what does it mean to be human?” when teaching anthropology courses at Yale in the early 1980s. The question always inspired a great discussion, and Potts thought it might make an interesting basis for an exhibit about human evolution.

Potts pitched his idea for a human evolution exhibition immediately upon taking a position at NMNH in 1985. Smithsonian secretary Robert Adams liked the concept, but progress on the exhibition stalled within a few years. It was difficult to get any major exhibition off the ground at NMNH during the 80s and 90s because of the lack of consistent leadership. With eleven permanent and acting directors between 1981 and 2003, there was no way to build up momentum for big, multi-year projects. Eventually, Cristián Samper settled into a comparatively lengthy directorship (2003–2012), and greenlit the human evolution exhibition under the working title, What Does it Mean to be Human?

An L-shaped, 15,000 square foot space (which previously contained parts of the North American Mammals and Native American Cultures exhibitions) was designated the future home of the Hall of Human Origins. The core project team began meeting regularly in 2007. Kathleen Gordon was the exhibition developer and Junko Chinen was project manager. Briana Pobiner, Jennifer Clark, and Matt Tocheri joined Potts as in-house scientific advisors. As with most permanent exhibitions at NMNH over the past 25 years, content was developed internally while the 3-D and graphic design was produced in collaboration with the Toronto-based design firm Reich + Petch.

Organization

Map of the Hall of Human Origins. From humanorigins.si.edu.

One of the team’s first tasks was to articulate what an exhibition based around a question would actually be about. The objective was to welcome visitors’ perspectives, but the hall itself couldn’t be a blank canvas. Exploring ways in which the exhibition could address varied perspectives led to some dead ends. One early idea was to feature a section about creation stories from around the world. But while the intention was to be inclusive and respectful of visitors coming to the exhibition from religious backgrounds, the section came across as a straw man, set up in order to be knocked down by the scientific perspective taken by the rest of the exhibition. Choosing which creation stories to include was also a problem, as was the use of terms like “story” and “myth” in the first place.

Instead, the team decided to fill out the exhibition with potential answers to a variation on the central question: What makes us human? Walking upright. Making tools. Living in social groups. Communicating with symbols. Creative expression. These are all valid answers. And crucially, they are potentially meaningful to everyone, regardless of whether the visitor is approaching the question from a more scientific perspective, or a more spiritual one. The exhibition presents the evidence for how and when each of these traits evolved, but leaves it up to the visitor to decide which they feel is most important to their humanity. By encouraging each visitor to take part in the process of making meaning, the exhibition implicitly rejects the prevailing perspective that there are only two ways to view the origins of humanity, and that those perspectives are mutually exclusive.

Organizing the exhibition around “things that make us human” also helped the team discourage the misconception that evolution is progressive or teleological. Visitors are often predisposed to think of evolution like a ladder, where each stage is a more advanced, improved form of what came before. An evaluation of the Hall of Human Biology and Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History found that many visitors viewing the dioramas saw a progression from the small, dark-skinned Homo erectus to the tall, white Neanderthals. The exhibition’s designers had specifically tried to avoid this by arranging the dioramas cyclically, and by including labels explaining that evolution does not have a preordained direction or goal—populations merely adapt to maximize their success in the present environment. Nevertheless, preconceived ideas are powerful, and even these mitigative efforts were apparently not enough. In contrast, the NMNH Hall of Human Origins is not strictly chronological, nor does it focus on one hominin species at a time. This reduces the temptation to plot each display onto a directional axis. It also helps that the hall runs in two directions, and can be entered from either end.

Design

Overview of Hall of Human Origins. Photo by the author.

The design of the Hall of Human Origins feels respectful, even reverent. A palette of tans, browns, and other earth tones keep the space from looking garish, and evokes the importance of exploring the deep ancestry of our species. A core design element is a wall of densely-packed horizontal layers, a refrence to the stratigraphic context in which fossils are found. The wall is punctuated by larger-than-life relief sculptures, each one related to one of the key attributes of humanity covered by the exhibition. For example, a hominin with a spear facing an elephant represents how tool use opened up new food sources.

For Briana Pobiner, it was particularly important that the hall’s design put a human face on science. Many people think of science as something cold and distant, but warm up to it when they get to know the individuals behind it. To that end, the exhibition includes three “snapshots in time”—interactive media installations where a scientist on screen (one of which is Pobiner herself) guides visitors through a particular archaeological puzzle. The hall also includes 24 “how do we know” graphics. Each one includes a photo of a scientist in some way affiliated with the Human Origins Program and who contributed to the exhibition content, with a first-person account of how scientists interpret evidence and reach a conclusion. Pobiner says that teachers are particularly fond of these, and sometimes ask students on field trips to find all of them.

One ring to rule them all. Photo by the author.

The Hall of Human Origins includes nearly 300 objects. Most are casts, as hominin fossils are typically held in their countries of origin. There are a couple dozen originals, however, including archaeological artifacts and a Neanderthal skeleton from Shanidar Cave, in Iraq. This individual was one of several excavated in the 1950s during a collaborative project between the Smithsonian and the Iraqi Director General of Antiquities. The Iraqi government permitted this single skeleton to be held at NMNH, and it remains the only Neanderthal in the western hemisphere. Among the replicas on display is a partial skeleton of Homo floresiensis. Often called “the Hobbit” by its discoverers, this species was brand new to science when the exhibition was under development. Pobiner clued me in to an easter egg I had missed for fourteen years: the Hobbit has a gold ring on its finger.

Reconstructions

Bronze figures of a Neanderthal woman and child. Photo by the author.

Many natural history exhibits have the advantage of large, iconic objects that grab visitor attention, like sauropods, elephants, or whales. But hominin fossils are small, often fragmentary, and difficult to interpret. They wouldn’t be able to carry an exhibition for non-specialists on their own. In order to visualize the lives of past hominins, the team turned to paleoartist John Gurche.

The Hall of Human Origins was not Gurche’s first project with the Smithsonian. Between 1980 and 1985, he painted the iconic Tower of Time for the (now retired) Fossils: History of Life exhibition, as well as a backdrop for a lungfish diorama and a series of fossil horse reconstructions. This also wasn’t his first foray into reconstructing extinct hominins. Among many other projects, Gurche was briefly attached to Potts’s first attempt to get a human evolution exhibition off the ground, and he produced a life-sized model of Lucy the Australopithecus afarensis for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in 1996.

For the Hall of Human Origins, Gurche created a new Lucy diorama, eight full-color busts, and five bronze figures with landforms. The busts are astonishingly life-like. Each one was sculpted in clay over a replica skull—first the muscle, then the skin. These sculptures were molded in fiberglass and cast in a silicone mix that could be tinted with different skin tones. The eyeballs are acrylic, and required a painstaking 30-step process to create. Finally, the hairs (hundreds of thousands per bust) were punched in one at a time. “If people react to your sculptures by feeling a little creeped out because they sense a living presence there,” Gurche wrote, “you know you’ve done well.”

A promotional image of Gurche’s eight hominin busts. From humanorigins.si.edu.

Gurche began the bronzes in a similar way, sculpting their anatomy layer by layer over a posed cast skeleton. Choosing the behavior to depict for each species was a major point of discussion for the exhibition team. Each figure needed to capture the essence of that species, while also representing a recognizable aspect of the human experience. It was decided early that Paranthropus boisei and Homo erectus should be subtly interacting, since they coexisted in Tanzania and Kenya. In the final exhibition, the Homo erectus is looking warily at Paranthropus as she carries a dead gazelle back to her family. Homo floresiensis is shown being knocked over by an unseen predator, highlighting the species’ vulnerability. And the Neanderthal woman is showing a child how to make clothing by perforating a hide with an awl and clamping it in her teeth. No detail was too small—for example, the Neanderthal woman is squatting because many Neanderthals have ankle joint wear similar to modern populations that spend a lot of time squatting.

Response

In spite of large headers proclaiming it “treasured remains” of “a real Neanderthal,” this display receives less attention than the development team would like. Photo by the author.

In the years since the Hall of Human Origins opened, the team that created it has gotten a good idea of which aspects are working, and which are not. The bronzes are extremely popular, both as photo ops and as interactive experiences. A display doesn’t need a button or a lever to be interactive—the bronzes are practically crying out to be touched. The fact that they share space with visitors—rather than being captured behind glass—forces people to confront them, size them up, and consider how they are like and unlike themselves. I’m particularly enchanted by the Homo heidelbergensis (top of the page), who appears to be calling visitors to interact by offering a piece of meat. The bronze figures are also toddler magnets. Even at a non-verbal age, children are drawn to them. Museum Educator Margery Gordon recalls there was some internal concern about nudity, but ultimately few, if any, visitors complained.

By timing and tracking visitors, NMNH staff have determined that the “Morphing Station” photo booth is the most popular element in the exhibition. This interactive media piece takes photos of visitors and overlays them onto the face of one of the eight busts, showing what each person might look like as a member of another species. This concept was actually proposed by the science team, and the Reich + Petch designers were surprised that they wanted something so frivolous. But in fact, the photo booth perfectly matched the team’s goal to center each visitor and encourage them to engage with their evolutionary past on their own terms.

Meanwhile, the real Neanderthal skeleton has proven to be the biggest challenge for capturing visitor attention. The development team placed it in the center of the exhibition, and hoped that it would be a must-see focal point. However, conservation requirements mean that the Neanderthal case is dimly lit, and each bone is individually packed in cushioning foam. Hard to see and harder to interpret, the disarticulated skeleton continues to be overlooked by a majority of visitors. The team has re-designed the graphics and lighting around the Neanderthal multiple times in an effort to communicate that this is a rare chance to see a real skeleton.

The educational efforts undertaken with the Hall of Human Origins did not end in 2010. A Broader Social Impacts Committee, with a rotating membership of scientists, clergy, teachers, and others, was formed in 2009 and continues to meet. In-gallery and online talks about how the study of human evolution intersects with social issues are held regularly. A 1200 square foot version of the exhibition travels to libraries, community centers, and even seminaries. And Pobiner continues to work with educators to create better tools for teaching students about evolution. Persistence, it seems, is key in ensuring the exhibition’s content continues to reach new audiences.

When the Hall of Human Origins began development, about 40% of Americans agreed that humans developed over millions of years from other forms of life. This number hadn’t meaningfully changed since Gallup and other polling organizations began asking the question in the early 1980s. But in the last decade, that number has climbed to 55%. Miller and colleagues suggest that this change is related to declining religious affiliation. It’s also possible that agenda-setting right wing lobbyists have moved on to other anti-science projects, like climate change denial and rejection of vaccines. Whether this trend continues remains to be seen, but if more people are indeed open to exploring where our species came from, then there is more need than ever for experiences like the Hall of Human Origins.

Many thanks to Human Origins Education Program Specialist Briana Pobiner and Curator of Biological Anthropology Rick Potts for speaking with me as I was writing this article. Opinions and any factual errors are my own.

References

Gurche, J. 2013. Shaping Humanity: How Science, Art, and Imagination Help Us Understand Our Origins. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Miller, J.D., Scott, E.C., Huffaker, J.S. 2021. Public acceptance of evolution in the United States, 1985–2020. Public Understanding of Science 31:2.

Pobiner, B. 2016. Accepting, understanding, teaching, and learning (human) evolution: Obstacles and opportunities. American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 159:61:232–274

Potts, R. 2010. Presenting Human Evolution to the Public: The Smithsonian’s Hall of Human Origins. Anthronotes 31:1

Scott, M. and Giusti, E. 2013. Designing Human Evolution Exhibitions: Insights from Exhibitions and Audiences. Museums and Social Issues 1:1:49–68

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Filed under education, exhibits, mammals, museums, NMNH, paleoart, science communication

October 18, 2023 · 5:13 pm

When were the Field Museum fossil mounts created?

So, I have a confession to make. In January of this year, I started working on an in-depth article about the Hall of Human Origins at the National Museum of Natural History. It was going to cover everything: John Gurche’s sculptures, the design and narrative of the gallery, the challenges of opening an exhibition about human evolution on the National Mall, and even the misguided accusations that the hall contains climate change denial. It’s a great story, and I really want to write it up. So I’m giving myself a public ultimatum: it has to be done before the end of the year.

In the meantime, I’d like to share something I whipped up for social media (I’m primarily on BlueSky these days, if anyone’s looking for me). The annotated photos below show the year that each of these fossil mounts at the Field Museum first went on display. A complete list of currently-displayed mounts and their debut years is at the end of the post.

“Ungulate row” in the current Evolving Planet exhibition. Photo by John Weinstein, modified from original.

I find this interesting for a number of reasons. For one thing, it’s a reminder of the age of many museum exhibits. Multiple generations have come to see these fossils—a few of them predate the current Field Museum building by decades. But these dates are also a succinct recounting of the history of vertebrate paleontology at the Field. The oldest mounts—the mastodon and Irish elk—were leftovers from the Field Columbian Exposition, and presumably were purchased from the Ward’s Natural Science catalog.

The Ice Age menagerie in Evolving Planet. Photo by the author.

After that, a couple of dinosaurs join the fray. These were the result of Elmer Riggs’ first expeditions for the Field Museum. He was hired specifically to collect dinosaurs that could match the displays at AMNH and elsewhere, after all. Riggs’ real interest was in mammals, however, and by the 1910s we see that his department is exclusively mounting North American fossil mammals for display. In 1925, we begin to see the results of the Captain Marshall Field Expeditions (1923–1927) on display, as South American animals like Glyptodon and Aglaocetus join the exhibits.

Around 1948, the University of Chicago’s Museum of Geology closed down, and turned its collections over to the Field Museum. The University of Chicago had a particularly strong collection of Permian animals from Texas and South Africa, and there was an immediate flurry of activity to get those on display at the Field. A few of the University specimens went on exhibit as-is, but many (including Bradysaurus and Aulacephalodon) were disassembled and remounted by Orville Gilpin and others.

The dinosaur hall in Evolving Planet. Photo by the author.

After 1960, there was an extremely long period in which no new fossil mounts were added to the exhibits. The fossil halls languished without update until the end of the 20th century, with the opening of Life Over Time. Up until that point, the Field Museum had very few dinosaurs on display, but Life Over Time made dinosaurs its centerpiece. A growing popular interest in dinosaurs during the late 1980s, not to mention a certain 1993 movie, was probably the cause. Since that time, nearly all the new additions to the fossil exhibits have been dinosaurs. And with the exception of Arctodus in 2006, there have been no additions to the ranks of mounted mammal skeletons since the doldrums began in 1960.

That’s it for now, but let’s see about that Human Origins article before the end of the year!

Name (Common Name)	Type	Year Installed (Updated)
Megaloceros giganteus (Irish elk)	Mounted skeleton	1895
Mammut americanum (mastodon)	Mounted skeleton	1895
Triceratops horridus (ceratopsian)	Skull	1905
Apatosaurus sp. (sauropod)	Mounted skeleton	1907 (1957, 1994)
Oxydactylus longipes (camel)	Mounted skeleton	1916
Dinictis felina (nimravid)	Mounted skeleton	1916
Smilodon fatalis (saber-toothed cat)	Mounted skeleton	1917 (1935, 1941)*
Ursus speleaus (cave bear)	Mounted skeleton	1917
Megacerops sp. (brontothere)	Mounted skeleton	1920
Mammuthus columbi (Columbian mammoth)	Mounted skeleton	1923
Aglaocetus moreni (baleen whale)	Skull	1925
Glyptodon clavipes (glyptodont)	Mounted skeleton	1926
Pronothrotherium typicum (ground sloth)	Mounted skeleton	1931
Mesohippus bairdi (horse)	Mounted skeleton	1931
Megatherium americanum (ground sloth)	Mounted skeleton	1935 (1994)
Paramylodon harlani (ground sloth)	Mounted skeleton	1935 (1941)
Barylambda faberi (pantodont)	Mounted skeleton	1936
Moropus cooki (chalicothere)	Mounted skeleton	1938
Equus simplicidens (horse)	Mounted skeleton	1938
Bison antiquus (bison)	Mounted skeleton	1940
Castoroides ohioensis (beaver)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	1940
Andalgalornis ferox (terror bird)	Mounted skeleton	1940
Menoceras arikarense (rhino)	Bone bed	1941
Teleoceras major (rhino)	Mounted skeleton	1942
Pliohippus sp. (horse)	Mounted skeleton	1944
Homalodotherium cunninghami (notoungulate)	Mounted skeleton	1948
Captorhinus aguti (early reptile)	Mounted skeleton	1948
Diasparactus zenos (amphibian)	Mounted skeleton	1949
Cacops aspidephorus (amphibian)	Mounted skeleton	1949
Seymouria sanjuanensis (amphibian)	Mounted skeleton	1949
Acheloma cumminsi (amphibian)	Mounted skeleton	1949
Eryops megacephalus (amphibian)	Mounted skeleton	1949
Labidosaurus hamatus (early reptile)	Mounted skeleton	1949
Bradysaurus baini (pareiasaur)	Mounted skeleton	1950
Sphenacodon ferox (early synapsid)	Mounted skeleton	1950
Ophiacodon mirus (early synapsid)	Mounted skeleton	1951
Dimetrodon grandis (early synapsid)	Mounted skeleton	1951
Varanops brevirostris (early synapsid)	Mounted skeleton	1952
Aulacephalodon peavoti (early synapsid)	Mounted skeleton	1952
Edaphosaurus pogonias (early synapsid)	Mounted skeleton	1953
Protoceratops andrewsi (ceratopsian)	Mounted skeleton	1954
Daspletosaurus torosus (tyrannosaur)	Mounted skeleton	1958 (1994)
Lambeosaurus lambei (hadrosaur)	In situ skeleton	1958
Dunkleosteus terrelli (placoderm)	Skull (cast)	1958
Eohippus sp. (horse)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	1960
Brachiosaurus altithorax (sauropod)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	1993 (2001)
Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis (early dinosaur)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	1994
Pteranodon sp. (pterosaur) x3	Mounted skeleton (cast)	1994
Triceratops horridus (ceratopsian)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	1994
Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus (hadrosaur)	Mounted skeleton	1994 (2006)
Tyrannosaurus rex (SUE)	Mounted skeleton	2000 (2018)
Deinonychus antirrhopus (dromaeosaur)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	2006
Buitreraptor gonzalezorum (dromaeosaur)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	2006
Stegosaurus stenops (stegosaur)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	2006
Maiasaura peeblesorum juvenile (hadrosaur)	Mounted skeleton	2006
Rapetosaurus krausei juvenile (titanosaur)	Mounted skeleton	2006
Notharctus tenebrosus (primate)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	2006
Arctodus simus (short-faced bear)	Mounted skeleton	2006
Asilosaurus kongwe (dinosaur relative)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	2013
Patagotitan mayorum (Máximo)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	2018
Parringtonia gracilis (crocodile relative)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	2019
Spinosaurus aegyptiacus (Sobek)	Mounted skeleton (cast)	2023

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Filed under dinosaurs, exhibits, FMNH, fossil mounts, history of science, mammals, museums

July 17, 2023 · 6:21 pm

Is it real?

*O. megalodon* jaws a the American Museum of Natural History. Photo by the author.

You’ve probably seen the gaping jaws of Otodus megalodon (or “megalodon,” as it is colloquially known) in a natural history museum. Perhaps they’re set on the ground where they can frame a group photo, or maybe they’re suspended from the ceiling so you can imagine the rest of the shark rocketing toward you. In any case, every one of these O. megalodon jaws is a sculpted model with real (or cast) teeth embedded in it. Fossil jaws like this have never been found. Nor do scientists expect to ever find intact O. megalodon jaws—shark skeletons are made of cartilage, meaning they lack the mineral content and endurance of bone. Some fossilized shark skeletons are known, but they tend to be from smaller varieties. In the case of O. megalodon, we mostly just have teeth.

Why would a museum display a model of something that has never been found? Because paleontologists are quite confident that a real O. megalodon jaw would look just like this. For one thing, the general shape of modern lamniform shark jaws isn’t especially variable. Comparisons with modern sharks also allow scientists to determine where a fossil tooth fits into the mouth—in the front, to the side, or toward the back. There simply isn’t that much room for guesswork in the reconstruction, at least as far as the jaws are concerned.

I’ve been thinking about the accusation of “fake” again, as it pertains to fossil exhibitions (this is hardly new territory for this blog). One often hears from dissatisfied members of the public that the fossil skeletons on display at any given museum are fake—sometimes with the accusation that the real bones are “hidden” or “in storage” but occasionally with the conspiratorial angle that the creatures on display have been partially or fully invented. Museum workers do their best to explain: casts are exact copies made from molds of original fossils. Fossil skeletons are usually incomplete, but we can substitute casts from other individuals or mirror parts from the opposite side of the body. Plenty of mounted skeletons are made of original fossils, and at bigger museums, most of them are. And so forth.

*Thalassomedon* casts in pursuit of fish at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Photo by the author.

And yet, the cry of “fake” isn’t exactly wrong, either. Many displays contain some amount of sculpted material. In the case of the ubiquitous meg jaws, most of the object by volume is reconstruction. Lukas Rieppel cheekily describes early 20th century dinosaur mounts as “mixed media sculptures, having been cobbled together from a large number of disparate elements that include plaster, steel, and paint, in addition to fossilized bone.” He’s right, and what’s more, even complete skeletons don’t come out of the ground assembled on metal armatures.

So here’s my take: calling fossil mounts fake isn’t wrong, but it also isn’t relevant. The point of the O. megalodon jaws at the start of this post isn’t to show you the real fossil teeth—they’re kind of hard to see suspended fifteen feet off the ground. No, the point is to give the extinct shark that left those teeth behind form, life, and context. The visual and visceral experience of a 10-foot mouth rushing down at you provides a better understanding of what O. megalodon was all about then a case of teeth laid flat in a case ever could.

SUE in the Field Museum’s Evolving Planet exhibition. Photo by the author.

The same applies to just about any mounted fossil skeleton you’ve ever seen, whether it includes original material or is entirely cast. The purpose of these displays isn’t to show fossils as they were found. These are works of installation art, custom built for the space and in dialogue with their surroundings, including with visitors themselves. Take SUE the T. rex in their 2018 gallery on the Field Museum’s second floor. When SUE was in the cavernous, half-acre expanse of Stanley Field Hall, visitors often remarked that SUE looked small. In order to emphasize SUE’s size in the new space, the designers hid the skeleton behind a scrim wall. Instead of first seeing SUE from several hundred feet away, visitors don’t meet the T. rex until it’s looming over them, and they feel quite small in comparison. The T. rex skeleton and the space around it were arranged and composed in order to invoke a precise emotional response.

Often, the display evokes a specific hypothesis. The rearing Barosaurus in the AMNH rotunda is a classic example. We don’t know for sure whether Barosaurus could rear up on its back legs, or whether it would defend its offspring from a charging Allosaurus. But this is the story the exhibit’s creators chose to tell, using articulated fossil casts as their medium. In short, a display like this lets visitors without a detailed background in skeletal anatomy and animal behavior see the fossils the way that scientists do.

Bison diorama at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Photo by the author.

It’s worth drawing a comparison between mounted fossil skeletons and the other iconic natural history display, the taxidermy diorama. Imagine looking at this exquisite diorama of a rolling bison at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and dismissing it because it’s not real. The bison is, for the most part, a fabrication: it’s mostly clay or foam by volume, and it’s built over a wood and metal armature. It has no bones, muscle, blood, or viscera, and the only original part, the hide, has been treated with an assortment of preservatives. Meanwhile, the grass may well be paper or fabric, the background landscape is a painting, and the warmth from the sun is an electric light. This diorama is almost completely fake, but to say so is to entirely miss the point. If physical reality is all that matters, this display has nothing to offer that you can’t get from a leather sofa.

A well-made taxidermy diorama uses artificial materials to evoke the attitude, behavior, context, and essence of a living animal. A reconstructed fossil skeleton does precisely the same thing (although it is limited to the part of the extinct animal that we know best). So the next time someone dismisses a fossil exhibit as “fake,” try reframing the conversation. The reality of these displays doesn’t come from the material they’re made from, it comes from the combined knowledge and skill of preparators, artists, and scientists.

References

Rieppel, L. 2019. Assembling the Dinosaur: Fossil Hunters, Tycoons, and the Making of a Spectacle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Poliquin, R. 2012. The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

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Filed under AMNH, art history, DMNS, exhibits, fish, FMNH, fossil mounts, museums, opinion, paleoart

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