Connecting with Our Ancestors: Human Evolution Museum Experiences

Shelley L. Smith is a biological anthropologist with over 30 years’ experience teaching human evolution and human biology. She earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 1990 and was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution, 1990-1991). In 1991, she joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Arlington, where she continues to serve today as Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Her previous research has explored human skeletal variation, dental development, childhood long bone, facial tissue, and maxillary sinus growth and development, and the maturation of Homo erectus. She has published works in the fields of human biology, the history and philosophy of human evolutionary science, hominin paleontology, and forensic anthropology. An emphasis on human and earlier hominin variation and its interpretation unites all the areas of her research. Since 2016, her focus has been on the presentation of human evolution to museum visitors and the role of museums in promoting science literacy, the understanding of evolutionary theory and principles, and an appreciation of Deep Time. In addition to Connecting with Our Ancestors, she is the author of an in-progress book describing the multi-decade project of creating the Smithsonian’s Hall of Human Origins, Developing the Hall of Human Origins: Adaptive Resilience.

• Part I: Museum Exhibits.- Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: The Texas Museums.- Chapter 3: The National Museum of Natural History.- Chapter 4: The American Museum of Natural History.- Chapter 5:  The Great Lakes Region: Chicago and Cleveland.- Chapter 6: The West Coast: California.- Chapter 7: In the Center: The Denver Museum of Nature and Science.- Chapter 8: The “Outgroup”: London’s Natural History Museum.- Part II: Interviews.- Chapter 9: Content and Change.- Chapter 10: Fantasy and Reality.- Chapter 11: Self-Assessment.- Chapter 12: Education and “Edutainment”.- Chapter 13: Religion.- Chapter 14: Politics.- Chapter 15:  Race and History.- Chapter 16: Conclusion.