On Thursday I decided to go to the Field Museum before spending 2 hours with my favorite musician of all time, Afie Jurvanen. Sorry Dave, you’ve been replaced. 😉
I’ve been here numerous times, so I was really only there to see the special exhibitions and Evolving Planet. It was only $31 to get access to everything and see one 3D movie. Now, it sounds pretty cheap, but you have to pay to park which is around $25 for the day. I ended up paying $56 for 4 hours in the museum. Was it worth it??? HELL YEAH!!!
The first exhibit I went to was Vikings and I was greeted by this sign. It’s so funny because, well, it’s a museum of natural history. There’s human bones all over the place in there.
It was pretty amazing. It took me 2 hours to get through it. Not because it was so big, but because I stood and really studied everything. I get caught up in my thoughts and just stare at the items and imagine what the person who used it was like, for example, this necklace.
Who made this? What was his inspiration for the design? It must have taken him/her months to create it. Look how intricate the design is. It’s amazing… Who was it made for? Were they nice? Did they have kids? How hard was their life? I could go on forever with the questions that flow through my head.
I did manage to take some pics of representations of Thor’s Hammer.
I was in there for so long, I almost missed the 3D movie. It was about the Galopogas Islands and pretty interesting. When it was over the exit put me right in the middle of the Evolving Planet exhibit. That was frustrating as hell. Anyone who’s been there know you have to start at the beginning. So I had to walk backwards through it to get to the beginning. Awkward!!!!
It’s my absolute favorite part of the museum. I could spend the entire day in that one area. The fossils are spectacular. I look at them in awe. How can that have actually been a real creature? It’s unbelievable! And after studying taphonomy it makes it even more incredible. The probability of anything becoming a fossil is so small and here we have an almost perfect fossil of an animal that lived millions upon millions years ago.
I get to the emergence of hominids part of the exhibit. I fucking love that part. Human evolution is my field of study and no matter how many times I see, hear, or read about it its just as exciting as it was the first time I learned about it. The fact that there are people who still deny the evolution of our species is astounding! As I was studying the Australopithecus Afarensis I overheard some people talking and felt compelled to correct their misconceived ideas of the tool use between Homo habilus and Homo erectus. Probably not the best idea, who the hell wants someone butting into their conversation? The skeleton that really grabbed my attention was this 15,000 yr old fossil of a Homo sapien woman.
The display is about Homo Sapiens being the first in our lineage to actually bury their dead. I think I stood there for a good 30 minutes. That was an actual woman who walked on the planet. What was her life like? How many kids did she have? How did she die? What made her smile or cry? Just look how well she is preserved…it’s incredible!
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