In the News: Mammoths and Men

Fig.1. Mammoth skeleton at the George C. Page Museum
(Credit: Russ via Flickr, 2014)

Artifacts, sediment cores, and mammoth bones all connect us to ancient history, either through culture or the natural world. This week in the news, we read about how to examine the past using old collections in new ways:

In the News: Around the World and Back in Time

Fig.1. Charles Darwin in 1868 (Credit: Julia Margaret Cameron, 1868)

Instead of sailing to the other side of the world like Darwin, modern evolutionary biologists can scope collections for insight into ancient changes. Online digitized records, hands-on staining, and teeth hidden in collections are being used to rewrite the evolutionary history of animals: