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Ages of man evolution exhibits and permanent collections in the museum. Guide and description for visitors.    
 
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American Museum of Natural History.

SOUTH PAVILION
HALL OF THE AGE OF MAN
Conspicuous in the center of this hall of the
American Museum of Natural History is a skeleton of the giant carnivorous dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex (king of tyrant saurians), measuring forty-seven feet in length and standing nineteen feet in height. It can safely be said that Tyrannosaurus, which lived three million years ago, is the largest terrestrial flesh-eater of all ages. This specimen forms one of a group intended as the central exhibit of a new hall. Owing to lack of space, however, only one specimen can be mounted or exhibited at the present time, and this is placed temporarily in the Age of Man Hall, as there is not rooni in the Dinosaur Hall to show it properly.

On the left is a series of skeletons illustrating the evolution of the horse under the hand of man. In the exhibit are skeletons of the Shetland pony and draught horses, as well as those of the well-known race-horse "Sysonby" and the thoroughbred stallion "Nimr."

In the adjacent wall cases is an interesting osteological exhibit showing how the age of horses is determined through the growth and development of the teeth.

Beyond the horse exhibit of the American Museum of Natural History, are groups and individual specimens of fossil mammals from South America, the most prominent of which is the Giant Ground Sloth Group,21 and next to it the group of Glyptodons or tortoise-armadillos; skeletons of the rhinoceros-like Toxodon, of the camel-like Macrauchenia, the short-legged horse Hippidium and of the diminutive ground sloths that formerly lived in Cuba and Patagonia.

Near-by in the center of the hall is the great saber-tooth tiger from South America. Numerous specimens of a smaller species of saber-tooth tiger have recently been found in the asphalt deposits of California. (See the Asphalt Group in the Southeast Wing.)

At the immediate right of the skeleton of Tyrannosaurus is a number of A-shaped cases containing an exhibit de-signed to show the progress of discovery, especially in the last few years, with regard to the primitive races of man which inhabited Europe during and following the Great Ice Age. To illustrate the successive cultural states, there are reconstructions of the four principal ancestral types of man, i. e., Pithecanthropus or Ape-Man of Java, Eoanthropus or Piltdown Man, the Neanderthal Man (Homo neanderthalensis), and the Cro-Magnon Man (Homo sapiens). In addition to the casts of the more important skulls, there are weapons and other implements, and drawings to illustrate further the appearance and habits of Paleolithic man. These specimens served as subjects to illustrate the recent book of Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, "Men of the Old Stone Age."
The remainder of the hall is occupied by a most comprehensive and instructive exhibit of mammoths, mastodons and elephants.= The Warren Mastodon, found near New-burgh, New York, is the finest specimen of its kind ever discovered. The Evolution of the Mastodons and Elephants is illustrated by a series of skulls and separate teeth.

In the wall cases may be seen portions of skin and hair and other fragments of a mammoth found in Alaska. The plaster models of living and extinct elephants by Charles R. Knight are worthy of examination. Proceed to the

 

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