Blog

Posted Sat, 10/01/2016 - 1:16pm

Irons, Paint & Pulleys

Moving the 60-foot-by-12-foot Barrier Canyon Mural to our new museum location in 2011 took a lot of planning, and more than a little conservation of the aging mural.

Tags: conservation

Posted Wed, 09/14/2016 - 11:04am

To the Top: Adventurous Researchers Unlock Changes in Animal Communities

Dr. Eric Rickart, Dr. Shannen Robson and Dr. Lois Alexander have spent the past 15 years examining species of mice, voles, and squirrels (among other animals) in the American Great Basin to better understand how and why there are changes occurring within their communities.

Tags: vertebrate zoology, climate change

Posted Tue, 09/13/2016 - 12:49pm

Top 5 Dinosaur Myths

NHMU Curator of Paleontology, Randy Irmis, helps to clarify some common misconceptions about dinosaurs.

Tags: paleontology

Posted Mon, 09/12/2016 - 10:57am

Isabel Perez-Vega, NHMU Employee, Recognized As American Graduate Champion

We are thrilled that one of our long-time Youth Teaching Youth participants and now an NHMU employee, Isabel Perez-Vega, has been recognized as an American Graduate Champion.

Posted Thu, 09/08/2016 - 1:06pm

In with the New: Our Collections Wall Gets a New Look

It’s been five years since we first installed the 600 objects in our glass-enclosed Collections Wall. Now, we’re preserving some of the light-sensitive artifacts and bringing in objects from other collections to create a new, updated look for our visitors.

Posted Tue, 08/30/2016 - 4:47am

In the Tiny World of Starch Grains, Bigger is Better

It takes a thorough understanding of the biology of starch to determine which starch grains are being recovered from archaeological sites. Lisbeth Louderback, our Curator of Archaeology, has discovered that bigger grains yield the best information for identification purposes.

Tags: archaeology

Posted Mon, 08/29/2016 - 3:58pm

Good News About Carbs, Told by Archaeobotanists

By studying the diets of ancient peoples, archaeobotanists may help to provide some answers for modern agricultural challenges. Carbohydrate-rich plants are adding to the story of ancient agriculture and plant domestication.

Tags: archaeology

Posted Wed, 08/24/2016 - 11:33am

The Promontory Culture: Subarctic Canadian People Living in Utah Caves

One of the true American anthropological treasures, a trove of 250 moccasins and leather parts, was found in caves on the Great Salt Lake – after careful study and re-shaping, it seems that they belonged to people from subarctic Canada rather than the Fremont or Shoshone people who inhabited Utah.

Tags: archaeology

Posted Tue, 08/23/2016 - 2:04pm

Alcohol, Leather & Time

In 2001, NHMU received a Save America’s Treasures Grant to restore an amazing cache of moccasins found in the Promontory Point caves. The conservation work was methodical and meticulous, and as a result, the conserved and reshaped moccasins are available for generations of researchers to study.

Tags: archaeology

Posted Tue, 08/23/2016 - 12:08pm

This was the Place: Athabaskans Gambling on a New Life in the South

New evidence discovered in the Promontory caves reveals that a group of fantastic hunters and lovers of games and gambling were the inhabitants. Archaeologist and friend of NHMU, Jack Ives, believes that they were an Athabaskan or Dene-speaking culture from subarctic Canada, making friends in Utah.

Tags: archaeology