It began some 9,000 miles away from the Tempe campus — in Ethiopia. On Nov. 24, 1974, Don Johanson found Lucy in the village of Hadar under the hot Ethiopian sun. Lucy is the common name for a partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, an early human ancestor.
“Now, IHO has diversified — much like the tree of life,” said Bill Kimbel, director of IHO. “The study of human origins has changed and evolved over the years, just like Institute.”
IHO moved to ASU as an Arizona Board of Regents-approved research center in 1997. Kimbel was named director after Johanson in 2008, continuing the mission.
Standing at only 3 feet 6 inches, a cast of Lucy’s partial skeleton opens the laboratory section of the exhibit, “Becoming Human: 30 Years of Research and Discovery” at the Museum of Anthropology on the Tempe campus. The exhibition runs until Dec. 2.
“We want to answer the question: Why are we human?” Kimbel said. “(We wanted to) reach into people’s minds and hearts attempting to understand our own place in the natural world.”
“Becoming Human” was created through the collaboration of Kimbel and seven other faculty members — a large number of people to coordinate displays.
“We have images to find and take, videos to film and the people who supply them are always traveling,” said Judy Newland, director of the Museum of Anthropology. “We’re talking about people who go to Africa two to four times a year and most of the time in the summer, our planning stage.”
The planning of the exhibit began in May; exhibit construction couldn’t begin until August. The exhibit opened on Sept. 8.
Upon entering the self-guided exhibit, visitors are immediately drawn to a reconstruction of Lucy’s original resting place in Hadar, Ethiopia.
An excavation screen used for sifting materials in sand sits atop the dirt next to an archeological grid roped off by yellow string. Casts of various fossils become visible on close examination.
Ric Alling, a graduate student in museum studies, was responsible for construction of the Hadar site replica.
As an undergraduate, one of Alling’s first jobs was in theater, building theatrical scenes and set pieces.
“(Building the Hadar site) came naturally,” he said, stressing the incredible need to reflect natural elements. “We designed a three-dimensional element that would look like a believable foreground of the beautiful (high resolution photographs) we have.”
The replica’s frame is covered in a screening material similar to plaster in housing construction. A layer of muslin, a thin fabric, and glue sits atop the material and is finished with a thin layer of Salt River dirt.
“We joked that we brought the dirt all the way back from Ethiopia, but it’s just from the Salt River,” Alling said, noting little rocks and other dry elements were taken from around Tempe.
Built atop the frame is a replica of the excavation complete with grid work archeologists use for accurate measurements, flags, brushes, dental tools and other instruments used in fieldwork.
Kimbel said it’s a small taste of IHO’s fieldwork over the last 30 years.
“This is in fact how it looks when you’re in the hot Ethiopian sun discovering our ancestors,” he said, brushing away a bit of dirt from a protruding bone fossil replica of the A. afarensis jaw. “It’s rather incredible to examine.”
Walking into the second room of the exhibition, the centerpiece is the human family tree.
Painted on a beige wall, the brown branches were designed for aesthetic appeal and scientific accuracy. Kimbel said because of the controversy surrounding the evolution of human origins, they aimed for a very neutral display.
“We were more interested in giving a taste of issues IHO is researching instead of attempting to take a side or giving one more credibility over the other,” he said.
At each branch is a cast or high-resolution photograph (or both) of the relevant fossil as well as an iPad featuring short videos from an IHO scientist about their research and its relevance to that branch of the human tree.
At the base of the tree sits Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Orrorin tugenesis and Ardipithicus ramidus and their fossil casts. Johanson, the founding director of IHO, explains their significance in a video.
“Fossils older than 4 million years are very scarce,” he said, adding that great deal of controversy surrounds Ardipithicus ramidus.
“It belongs on the human family tree because apparently it did walk upright from time to time, a cardinal feature of what it means to be human,” Johanson said.
Newland said the exhibition curators hoped to bring about a more comprehensive product while creating the family tree.
“The goal was to get people to think cross-disciplinary about nature while (giving) faculty a place to speak from,” Newland said.
The exhibit features seven iPads, two TVs, two projectors and at least six computers, which is the most technology the museum has had within an exhibit, Newland said.
The heavy integration is possible because the museum and its exhibits are set up like a lab for graduate students in museum studies and other disciplines.
“Our master’s (degree) students help to create it as much as the faculty with the research that inspire the exhibit,” she said.
Closing the path through the exhibit is the other “bookend” — the laboratory.
“Bill said, ‘I want people to see a field sight because that’s where it starts and a lab because that’s where it ends,’” Newland said.
The laboratory setting displays a lab table, computers, casts of Lucy and various other fossils. It features work by IHO scientist Gary Schwartz about the growth record found in teeth belonging to various fossils of human ancestors.
“It’s always more challenging because of the number of people involved but there’s a great outcome because of the enthusiasm,” Newland said.
Author: Caitlin Cruz | Source: Statepress [November 22, 2011]