The American Museum Of Natural History: Anthropology

The American Museum of Natural History has many exhibits that

demonstrate many aspects of anthropology. The Museum is located on Central Park

West between W81st and W77nd streets. The museum is an excellent place to open

oneself to many new ideas and cultures. When looking through the museum the

exhibits that are anthropological could enhance ones understanding of a culture.

The museum is very big and a lot of time is needed to get the most out of it.

The following exhibits that demonstrate many aspects of anthropology are located

on the first, second and third floors. The first floor has American Northwest

Coast Peoples, Eskimos, Human Biology and Evolution. The second floor had

African Peoples, Asian Peoples, Mexico and Central American Peoples, and South

American Peoples. Finally, the third floor had Primates, North American Eastern

Woodlands And Plains Peoples, and Pacific Peoples. The museum also included

many other interesting exhibits that did not have to do with anthropology like

the Dinosaur Hall. All these exhibits in the museum had detailed information on

each exhibit whether it was a big sculpture or a little skeleton. There was

also films that could have been seen for a small price, but if one has the time

it is very educational and worth seeing.

In the hall of Asian Peoples the most intriguing exhibits was the

Chinese Wedding. It was very interesting to see how a different culture gets

married. In this wedding the Chinese bride sits in this beautiful bridal chair

from the groom's family that had carried her from her home. The bride now says

her good-byes to her own family because in the Chinese culture she is now part

of the grooms family. " Her impressive dowery, displayed by the procession on

the road , gives prestige to her family as the beauty of the bridal chair gives

prestige to the groom's." Prestige and honor are very important to the Chinese

culture and during an important event such as a wedding it is not unusual to

flaunt their prestige. To properly perform the dowry and the chair is a must.

In tradition Chinese culture the bride must be covered by a veil and the groom

never had seen her before he had removed the veil himself when she had arrived

at his family's home.

In picture #1 this shows the background of a village in Shantung, in

northeastern China. In this province is where Con...

... middle of paper ...

...are where the first

settlers that came to easter island are beleived to come from. Little are known

about the heads and figures made by people. I think this is very interesting

and would want to find out more about these peoples and their sculptures. This

hall was also my favorite because I was always interested in seeing the

beautiful pacific. So seeing exhibits with skeletons in them excited me in a way

that I was happy we had saved this exhibit for last.

The museum in an overall view gave me a better understanding to

anthopology as a whole. Each exhibit had detailed facts about the culture and

the people. For Example, we have learned about the human evolution in the class,

but the museum as you can see had good exhibits showing the evolution change in

humans in great detail. Another example could be the skeletal bones I saw at

the museum. After seeing the bones at the museum I could easily relate them to

the story in the Phillip Whitten and David E. K. Hunter anthropology book of No

Bones Unturned. This had gave me a better grasp at what they were looking at.

It had also given me more interest to how they looked at the bones and what

techniques they used.