I learned something today!
Mar. 1st, 2009 10:17 pmSo for a while now we've had a major exhibit in town featuring Lucy, the famous hominid fossil, as well as a wealth of information on the history of Ethopia. Those of you who are local to the Seattle area, if you haven't gone to see this yet, go see it. Now. It's going away on March 8th, so there's not much time left!
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solarbird and I, with this very thing in mind, scampered off this morning to go take a look. I'm very glad we did. The information on Ethopia was fascinating, starting with ancient history and moving right up into the 20th century. Notable highlights: the Aksumite Empire, Ethopia as the earliest Christian nation in Africa, Ethopian rulers tracing their ancestry clear back to the Queen of Sheba's son by Solomon, the country's membership in the League of Nations and its conflicts with Italy, and Haile Selassie, the last Ethopian emperor. And I have to admit that the various bits of religious art and manuscripts were neat to look at, very vibrant and colorful, and it was a good change of pace to see Jesus and Mary brown. Lots of emphasis in the art examples of large eyes, as well, which are apparently a symbol of holiness and purity.
On the ramp leading up to the actual Lucy fossil, they had several examples of reconstructed skulls from other pre-human hominid species as well, and that was pretty neat. I had been taught about H. habilis and H. erectus in school, and of course the Neanderthals, but there were several others I hadn't been aware of, such as H. ergaster and P. boisei.
Fossils fascinate me--especially the part where bits of them are indistinguishable to my eyes from normal rock, and yet, a trained paleontologist can look at them and go "a-ha these are bits of a Homo ergaster skull!" And then they'll put them together into a reconstruction, and suddenly you have a thing that has heft and weight and substance, something you can imagine was once part of a living creature.
And oh man, all the more so once you got into the Lucy exhibit. The actual bones weren't much to look at, laid out flat as they were--but don't get me wrong, that was pretty awesome. 3.18 million year old evidence of a living creature is just inherently cool. But around her there was a big mural of various depictions of proto-humans, as well as a modern reconstruction of the bones, this time in an upright case to give you a better idea of how they were arranged in the living creature.
What really brought it home to me though was the life-size reconstruction of what they think Lucy may have looked like. She was tiny, about the size of a seven-year-old child (or, if you happen to be a raving Elfquest fan like me, Wolfrider size! Hah!), and while she was quite furry, she didn't have as much fur as a gorilla or even a chimp. They'd given her a peaceful expression, and very expressive eyes. It was an amazing piece of work, and it had me thinking wow, these aren't just bits of bones, these were once a living thing.
So yeah. Very cool. I feel I have done right by Science today.
solarbird and I, with this very thing in mind, scampered off this morning to go take a look. I'm very glad we did. The information on Ethopia was fascinating, starting with ancient history and moving right up into the 20th century. Notable highlights: the Aksumite Empire, Ethopia as the earliest Christian nation in Africa, Ethopian rulers tracing their ancestry clear back to the Queen of Sheba's son by Solomon, the country's membership in the League of Nations and its conflicts with Italy, and Haile Selassie, the last Ethopian emperor. And I have to admit that the various bits of religious art and manuscripts were neat to look at, very vibrant and colorful, and it was a good change of pace to see Jesus and Mary brown. Lots of emphasis in the art examples of large eyes, as well, which are apparently a symbol of holiness and purity.On the ramp leading up to the actual Lucy fossil, they had several examples of reconstructed skulls from other pre-human hominid species as well, and that was pretty neat. I had been taught about H. habilis and H. erectus in school, and of course the Neanderthals, but there were several others I hadn't been aware of, such as H. ergaster and P. boisei.
Fossils fascinate me--especially the part where bits of them are indistinguishable to my eyes from normal rock, and yet, a trained paleontologist can look at them and go "a-ha these are bits of a Homo ergaster skull!" And then they'll put them together into a reconstruction, and suddenly you have a thing that has heft and weight and substance, something you can imagine was once part of a living creature.
And oh man, all the more so once you got into the Lucy exhibit. The actual bones weren't much to look at, laid out flat as they were--but don't get me wrong, that was pretty awesome. 3.18 million year old evidence of a living creature is just inherently cool. But around her there was a big mural of various depictions of proto-humans, as well as a modern reconstruction of the bones, this time in an upright case to give you a better idea of how they were arranged in the living creature.
What really brought it home to me though was the life-size reconstruction of what they think Lucy may have looked like. She was tiny, about the size of a seven-year-old child (or, if you happen to be a raving Elfquest fan like me, Wolfrider size! Hah!), and while she was quite furry, she didn't have as much fur as a gorilla or even a chimp. They'd given her a peaceful expression, and very expressive eyes. It was an amazing piece of work, and it had me thinking wow, these aren't just bits of bones, these were once a living thing.
So yeah. Very cool. I feel I have done right by Science today.
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