Happy Holidays from the Burke

On behalf of the Burke Museum, we would like to wish all of our Burke Blog readers a happy holiday season. How do we celebrate the holidays at the Burke? With natural history and cultural themes, of course!  Please enjoy these holiday and winter-related mini-posts from some of our writers.

"The 12 Days of Christmas Island" By Winifred Kehl

On Christmas Day in 1643, the Royal Mary sailed past an uninhabited island near Indonesia. The captain named it Christmas Island - although today, most of its 1,493 residents are Buddhist. Because humans arrived only recently to the island, many endemic plants and animals (plants and animals that are found nowhere else on Earth) survive … making the wildlife of Christmas Island rather unique.

Colored versions to come soon!

On the first day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw... the largest land-living arthropod (alternate lyrics: "a coconut crab in a palm tree")

On the second day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw... 2 endemic bats, and the largest land-living arthropod.

On the third day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw... 3 endemic birds, 2 endemic bats, and the largest land-living arthropod.

On the fourth day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw.... 4 local molluscs, 3 endemic birds, 2 endemic bats, and the largest land-living arthropod.

On the fifh day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw.... 5 whaaaaaaaaaaaale shaaaaaaaaaaaaarks...

On the sixth day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw.... 6 manta rays...

On the seventh day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw.... 7 native reptiles...

On the eighth day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw.... 8
migrating sea birds...

On the nineth day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw.... 9 native butterflies...

On the tenth day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw... 10 coral species...

On the eleventh day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw.... 11
kinds of reef fish

On the twelfth day on Christmas Island, I went out and saw....43.7
million red crabs migrating, 11 kinds of reef fish, 10 coral species, 9 native butterflies, 8 migrating sea birds, 7 native reptiles, 6 manta rays, 5 whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaale shaaaaaaaaaaarks... 4 local molluscs, 3 endemic birds, 2 endemic bats,and the largest land-living arthropoooooooooooooooood

 "Pleistocene Epoch Haiku" by Andrea Godinez

Pleistocene Epoch

Glaciers carried loose rocks, soil
Carving Puget Sound

And another one for fun:

Seattle under
Three-thousand feet deep of ice
In the last ice age

Maximum advance of ice into the Pacific Northwest. A lobe of ice has dammed the Glacial Lake Missoula in Montana. Periodically, the ice dam breached, sending the largest floods ever recorded through the channeled scablands of Washington and down through the Columbia Gorge. Image: Ice Age Floods Institute.

"Oh, the weather outside is frightful…" By Christy Hansen

The winter season is surely upon us—besides the immersion of our daily activities amid the twinkling lights of the holiday season, Seattle’s days and nights have now (statistically speaking) dipped into their coldest average temperatures for the year. With our coldest and darkest times of the year upon us, I am finding myself admittedly unprepared to bear the elements as the thermometer begins a slow dive and the chilling winds lash out at my face. Upon flipping through binders containing historic photographs depicting Alaskan Natives in the Ethnology Archives, I marvel at the content and deftness by which the Native people of the Arctic flourished in their daily activities amidst the extreme bitter weather—and immediately I am envious of the lavish and toasty winter gear handcrafted of caribou (or reindeer) and other animal skins donned by the Native Inupiat and Yup’ik peoples. Gaze upon a few choice examples from the Ethnology Archives:

Native Alaskans have been surviving in harsh and severe environments for millennia. 

Resourcefulness wasand has been strategic and a light-weight shell or parka constructed 

from the intestines of seal or walrus provides a universal waterproof protection against 

the elements for all activities. This photograph taken in the commercial photography 

studio of the Lomen Brothers of Nome, Alaska documents a Native man—either Yup’ik 

or Inupiat—wearing such a parka at some point in the first three decades of the 20th 

century. Gut skin parkas were universal all along the Alaskan coast, and were especially

useful for hunting and fishing out on the water.   

(Courtesy of the Ethnology Archives of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, L-3731, 

Catalog No. A1.2/27.)

A young Yup’ik woman, captured circa 1917-1936 by the Elite Studio of Juneau, is shown wearing her traditional fur parka made of caribou, seal or other animal. The parkas with the attached hood trimmed with a ruff of Arctic fox tail, wolf or wolverine fur would protect her face from the extreme cold. Some scholars assert that the insulation derived from such time-tested skin clothing is paramount to modernized synthetic materials. (Courtesy of the Ethnology Archives of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Catalog No. A1.2/89.)

Fossils and... LEGOS?

If you’re like me, you have fond memories of playing with LEGOs as a kid. Hours upon hours spent creating fortresses to keep out monsters or making search and rescue helicopters to help save your city from the latest natural disaster.

These stackable toys are fun, but did you know they also serve an important role at the Burke Museum? Our paleontology fossil preparators use LEGOs to help make casts of real fossils in the Burke's collections.

Fossil casts allow for 3-dimensional lightweight copies of a fossil to be made for educators to use in their classrooms and for researchers wanting to study a particular specimen from the Burke's paleontology collections.

Why we use LEGOs
The tight fit of the LEGOs doesn't leak the silicone we pour around the fossil to make a mold.



An Ammonite fossil covered in silicone. The silicone
is the “mold” the plaster is poured into to make the cast.

Another benefit of using LEGOs is that we can build a close perimeter around oddly-shaped fossils like this Gorgonopsian’s canine and partial lower jaw:

Even though it’s only a part of one section of its jaw,
this fossil is pretty big and oddly shaped – a great
example of why we use LEGOS.

After creating the silicone mold of the fossil, we pour plaster into the mold to finish the process of creating a 3-dimensional cast. Here's what the end result looks like:


The real fossil will stay at the Burke but thanks to LEGOs and the rest of the casting process, the silicone mold can be used several times to create additional casts.

Do you have LEGOs to donate?
“LEGO DUPLO” (like the ones in the photos) are the most useful for making fossil casts, but we will happily accept donations of LEGOs of any type.

If you have any unwanted LEGOs at your house that you'd like to give a new career in our fossil prep lab, please drop them off at the Burke Museum admission desk during the month of September 2013. Thanks!

Archaeology at an Insane Asylum

Imagine the Archaeology Department’s surprise when they got a call from the WA State Archives requesting help with 12 boxes of artifacts from the Insane Asylum of Washington Territory. 

Turns out that along with the historic hospital records from what has become Western State Hospital in Lakewood, WA, some artifacts were also transferred to the State Archives. The State Archivist realized these collections belonged in an appropriate repository, and contacted the Burke Museum.

But why are there artifacts coming from the Western State Hospital, the State’s psychiatric hospital? Due to the proposed construction of a new wing in the 1980s, archaeologists from the Office of Public Archaeology on the University of Washington campus were called in to investigate the land that is part of the Fort Steilacoom Historic District. 

Archaeologists identified, among other things, remnants of a wooden structure dating to circa 1850-1890 and a privy dating to circa 1850-1920. This site was originally a Steilacoom band winter settlement site. In the 1830s, the site was occupied by Joseph Thomas Heath, who ran a Hudson’s Bay Company farm. It was taken over by the U.S. Army in 1849 when Heath succumbed to measles. The U.S. Army established Fort Steilacoom which housed a military hospital and surgeon’s quarters. The fort was abandoned in the 1868, and was purchased by Washington Territory, in part, to establish a facility for psychiatric patients.

This Fall, a group of UW Museology students from Museum 581: Preservation and Management of Collections, has been working with the Burke Museum's Archaeology department to rehouse and catalog the artifacts found at the site.

The artifacts include glass bottles and fragments, nails, clay pipes, ceramic sherds, metal buttons, bricks and a favorite here in the Archaeology lab, a leather shoe with shoelaces intact. This project provides a learning experience for Museology students in terms of the depth and breadth of archaeological collections, as well as the practical experience of organizing such a varied collection.

The Waterlines Project Exhibit at Milepost 31

Last week, the Washington State Department of Transportation opened Milepost 31 (MP31), a new public information center in the heart of Pioneer Square. This center was championed by a group of neighborhood and historic preservation organizations brought together as part of the Section 106 process of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires that states work to offset potential construction effects in historic places like Pioneer Square.

MP31 highlights the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement process and the history of Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood. Several organizations, including the Burke Museum, History Link, the Tulalip Tribes, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, and the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe contributed to the exhibit.

MP31 provides a unique opportunity for visitors to see how geology, archaeology, current events, and cultural heritage inform the history of Puget Sound and the future of our city.

While WSDOT conducts environmental and cultural research to comply with federal and state laws for every major construction project, MP31 represents an unprecedented effort to share this invaluable information and engage local Native communities and the general public in our shared heritage.

The Burke Museum’s Waterlines Project team curated the “Moving Land” section of MP31. Our Waterlines team has been working together for almost 8 years and is led by Burke Curator of Archaeology Dr. Peter Lape, Puget Sound River History Project staff member Amir Sheikh and research artist Donald Fels. The team explores Seattle’s history by examining the natural and human impacts on the city’s shorelines, and works to apply this knowledge to urban development decisions today.

As you walk through “Moving Land,” large columns containing soil layers from test drillings envelop you in the space. These columns literally share the history beneath your feet from a layer of peat of a long buried tidal lagoon under present-day Occidental Park to the sawdust from Yesler’s Mill that filled it. Also under your feet is an eye-catching floor map allows you to trace the history of Seattle’s changing shoreline.

 

Moving Land highlights monumental moments in Seattle’s development, from the Denny Regrade to a severe earthquake that occurred 1,100 years ago and still lives on in local Native American stories.

A video follows the histories of people and communities on Seattle’s transforming shores from the Native village site of Djidjila'letch to the heart of the metropolis we know today.

 

Over the past week, there has been a lot of public discussion about MP31. The center brings up concerns about tax dollars and the issue of the Viaduct replacement. But it also provides an opportunity for the Burke Museum and our collaborators to share our work with the community outside the museum’s walls and foster public discussion that helps us learn from the past and plan for the future.

SCIENCE!! Comics: Episode Two

Click the picture for a larger (readable) version!

This week! Like water off a butterfly's wing - what do butterflies do when it rains?

Learn more!

This week's comic was based on a press release from the American Institute of Physics, but I didn't even get to the point of their research because I got caught up in the details of how butterfly wings shed water and dirt. The cool thing for us humans is that we might be able to manufacture silicon with texture like butterfly wings so that it will shed water and dirt without needing to be cleaned with detergents. 

As usual, any mistakes are mine alone. I should also note that the butterfly mentionedin the press release (mountain swallowtail) is not the same species I drew (blue morpho).

Science Behind-the-Scenes: Paleontology Edition (Part 2)

Do you want to work in the fossil collection of a museum and be surrounded by fossils all day? In this edition of Science Behind-the-Scenes, meet the people who work in the paleontology (fossil) collection, learn about what they study, and meet some of our favorite fossils!

A Leptauchenia skull.

The Burke's paleontology collection houses over 3 millions fossils (as you'll know if you've read Part 1) and quite a few people (live, not fossilized), too!

We've got curators of vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants, a fossil preparator, a handful of graduate students doing research and collection work, a legion of volunteers, scientists from the University of Washington and elsewhere doing research, and one collection manager to rule them all.

There's a lot going on! One of the most important jobs is keeping the fossils safe and organized. With this many fossils, if you put something in the wrong drawer it might be lost for years! (This is no exaggeration!) With good care and attention, the Burke's fossils will be available for research and exhibits forever. That's the goal of paleontology collection manager Ron Eng. 

Caroline's favorite fossil: grass silica.

The Burke's curators are scientists and specialists in their field - for example Caroline Strömberg, curator of plant fossils, is a paleobotanist. She studies the evolution of grasslands (technically speaking, grass-dominated vegetation) during the last 70 million years and how it affected animals. Curators help the collection by being experts - they identify fossils, help interpret fossils for exhibits, and help manage the fossil collection. Caroline's favorite fossil? Microscopic minerals left over from prehistoric plants: "My favorite fossil in the Burke collection is early Miocene microscopic silica from grasses that reflect the earliest grasslands that spread in North America."

Fossil preparator Burce Crowley prepares fossils, which means removing them from rock and gluing them if necessary. His job fascinates just about everyone who visits Burke's Behind-the-Scenes tours and really deserves its own blog post (stay tuned!).

Jonathan's favorite: Geomyid skull and skeleton.

Graduate students from the University of Washington help with collection work (like organizing or numbering fossils) and use the collection for research. Graduate student Jonathan Calede from Dr. Greg Wilson's paleontology lab uses fossils in the Burke's collection to study the evolution of mammals. He looks at the teeth of fossil mammals and compares them to the teeth of mammals in the Mammalogy collection to figure out what extinct animals ate. Jonathan's favorite fossil at the Burke is a skeleton of a prehistoric pocket gopher, a Geomyid.

Bradon's favorite: an Antarctic crocodile femur.

Brandon Peecook from Dr. Chris Sidor's paleontology lab recently returned from fossil-hunting trips to Antarctica and Africa. He looks for fossils there to bring back to the Burke. He studies how different groups of animals are related to each other and how they evolved. This helps him understand the diversity of extinct ecosystems that we have no other way of reconstructing: "Currently my favorite fossil at the Burke is the half femur brought back from Antractica that may actually belong to an early relative of crocodilians - something totally unknown from Antarctica before our recovery of the specimen."


Stay tuned for more from Science Behind-the-Scenes! We'll take a look at Bruce Crowley's job and find out how you get fossils from the field (like in Antarctica!) to the museum.

Posted By: Winifred Kehl, Communications