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I’m writing this article while riding the Amtrak train that follows the meandering route of the Hudson River. It is a beautiful spring day with lovely Maxfield Parrish fluffy clouds dotting the cerulean blue sky. Having started my journey in Philadelphia where the annual spring greening has commenced, and continuing north to Rochester—my destination—I am struck by how quickly the “greenery” turns to brown, as the seasonal change is not yet significantly reflected in the surrounding foliage. What a difference a slight change in geography and latitude make. And, since the trees are still mostly bare, I can see exposed the many homes hanging precipitously close to the river’s edge, their inhabitants clearly longing to be as proximal to the flowing river as possible. A barge is nudged southward shepherded by a tugboat, while other pleasure boats sit moored or in dry dock, still shrink-wrapped awaiting their own emergence. There is no other visible activity on the water. Millions of years ago, our hominid ancestors in SubSaharan Africa evidenced the same longing to inhabit the river’s edge throughout the mid-continent savannahs, seeking both the verdant riches and shelter of the forested shoreline, perhaps fulfilling some primal desire to return to the familiar forests from which they had earlier emerged. While this seeming need to populate the river’s edge may or may not truly be an evolved shared imperative— linking modern human with our ancestors— it does at least suggest that we are truly tied to our distant past. The dual engines of genetic predisposition and environmental influence link us to all living things, past, present, and future. And, owing to the chance mutations of shared genetic material, we have evolved in response to changing environments and geographic migration. The story of how we have become the animals that we are is richly and engagingly illustrated in the new Hall of Human Origins that recently opened at the American Museum of Natural History. Full Disclosure: the editor of this journal, Niles Eldredge, and the co-curator of the Hall, Ian Tattersall, are both friends and colleagues of mine. Additionally, I was lead designer of the Hall of Human Biology and Evolution, the exhibit that preceded the new Hall, the review of which is the topic of this essay. Having said this, I will endeavor to offer an unbiased assessment of the new exhibition. “It’s the dinosaurs, stupid.” Years ago, during the renovation of the halls of vertebrate evolution, the then Director of the American Museum, offered up the above declaration when asked if he thought that visitors would understand the cladistical organization that served as the framework for the exhibits. Without querying him directly regarding his intent, I believe his point was that it didn’t really matter whether visitors understood cladistics or not. People were coming to see the dinosaurs, and as long as they were visible in abundance, all other topics and issues were secondary. I was reminded of this (perhaps apocryphal) quotation when I recently overheard a visitor to the newly opened Hall of Human Origins mention to his young son, “These are their real heads.” While not quibbling over the fact that the “these” he was referring to were in fact casts of the real heads, the point is well made. People come to exhibits like this to see “stuff.” The real thing. The thing itself. And while casts and reconstructed fleshed out prehistoric hominids are not in fact the real thing, they are close enough, and they continue to satisfy countless museum visitors. I am happy to report that skulls and reconstructed ancestors still abundantly populate this hall, Evo Edu Outreach (2008) 1:80–83 DOI 10.1007/s12052-007-0011-x

“Forced March to Sentience” A Review of the Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History