New Heinz History Center exhibit explores the mysteries of the Ice Age
This summer, the region’s coolest attraction is at the Senator John Heinz History Center.
On these extraordinarily hot days, visitors have the opportunity to look back on Earth’s prehistoric past in “Planet Ice: Mysteries of the Ice Ages,” a new exhibit that uncovers how the Ice Ages shaped our world and its people.
Produced in partnership with the Canadian Museum of Nature, “Planet Ice” takes visitors on an epic journey spanning 80,000 years, exploring a frozen world transformed by glaciers, a changing climate, and people who adapted to survive.
In this region, Ice Age people camped at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter outside Avella – the oldest site of human habitation in North America.
The “Planet Ice” exhibit reveals how the region’s earliest residents lived off the land, hunted for food, and coexisted with “mega” animals like mastodon, short-faced bears, and American lions that once roamed the Pittsburgh area.
Visitors can come face-to-face with these Ice Age giants through full-size skeletal casts and authentic artifacts, including a Buffalo Creek mastodon bone found just seven miles from Meadowcroft and selected remains of the famous Bridgeville mastodon.
Highlights of the exhibit include:
-More than 100 specimens, artifacts, and models, which are complemented by interactives and multimedia that explore the impacts of ice on people and the environment
-Full scale skeletal casts of Ice Age animals like a mastodon, giant beaver, short-faced bear, and Smilodon — a saber-toothed cat that became extinct about 10,000 years ago
-Tools and artifacts used over 1,000 years ago by the Tuniit and Thule-Inuit peoples in Canada’s Arctic
-Hands-on interactives,including a display that creates the illusion of a woolly mammoth or American lion emerging from a snow-filled landscape
Artifacts made and used by the Ice Age people who lived at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter.
-An atlatl station where visitors can use a prehistoric spear thrower to experience how Ice Age people hunted for food
-Rare local discoveries connected to the region’s prehistoric past on loan from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Bethany College
The exhibit is open through April 4 and is included with regular museum admission.
“Planet Ice: Mysteries of the Ice Ages” was created by the Canadian Museum of Nature. For information on “Planet Ice” and the Senator John Heinz History Center, go online to heinzhistorycenter.org.