Exposing the ancient Americans.

• Author: Hardman, Chris
• Position: GALLERY PLACE

As a child visiting Chicago's world-renown Field Museum I used to stare at the artifacts behind glass cases without even realizing that hands just like mine had carefully crafted those clay pots. It never even occurred to me that the odd-sounding names were family members who lived and loved just like my own. I may have seen my reflection in the glass, but I never saw a reflection of myself in the artifacts. Now a new permanent exhibit at the Field Museum is bringing ancient Americans to life like never before.

The Ancient Americas chronicles the 13,000-year history of people in the Americas before the arrival of the Spanish. The exhibit examines ancient societies as they faced some of the same challenges we do today: finding shelter, sharing resources, cohabiting with neighbors. The exhibit highlights the ingenuity of these indigenous people as they transformed their societies from small family units to massive empires.

The new exhibit covers 19,000 square feet and features 20 distinct cultural groups including the Inca, Aztec, Nazca, Wari, Moche, Maya, Zapotec, Olmec, Mississippian, Iroquois, Taino, and the Clovis. Most of the 2,200 artifacts that make up the exhibit come from the Field Museum's collection of more than 20 million specimens from around the world.

Driving the science behind this exhibit are the museum's top-notch scholars, who include professors, field scientists, and senior anthropologists. The exhibit's lead curator, Jonathan Haas, has been working in anthropology and archaeology for more than 35 years and has conducted fieldwork in both the American Southwest and Peru. Haas began developing the concept for The Ancient Americas more than a decade ago as a replacement for the Field Museum's South America exhibit, constructed in the 1950s. "The old exhibits described these people from the outside as exotic 'others,' and were filled with cartoon-like images depicting the primitive and savage," he says. In contrast, the tone of the new exhibit encourages visitors to see some of themselves in the cultures on display and to think about what modern-day society can learn from the people of the past.

Working closely with Haas is Gary M. Feinman, former chair of the museum's Department of Anthropology and the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including one the most popular university texts covering world archaeology. Feinman has devoted more than thirty years of his career to research projects in the Valley of Oaxaca...