Museum Collections and the Story of Life on Earth

How do we really know what happened before we were here?

Objects are the key to understanding the story of life on earth. Many of us have personal collections that remind us of the past - people, places, and experiences. At the Burke Museum, we care for 15 million objects (and counting!) in our natural and cultural collections.

We gather and hold these objects as a record of nature and culture – and use them to generate new knowledge and celebrate our shared heritage (see some of these objects in our ever-growing Facebook album).

What can objects tell us about the world around us, and the life before us? These are the questions that motivate Burke researchers every day.

Watch this short video for a glimpse into our collections and the people who care for, and learn from, these objects to help better understand the world around us:

Plastics in our Collections: A Sign of the Changing Material Culture?

"Before Plastics" objects on display

in the Plastics Unwrapped exhibit

The Burke Museum’s new exhibit, Plastics Unwrapped, examines how plastics went from being rare to being everywhere in a short period of time, and how material culture was changed by plastics.

To help visitors explore what life was like before plastics, several objects from the Burke’s ethnology collections – made from a range of materials found in nature – are on display. These objects include: a rain hat made of twined cedar bark, a child’s waterproof parka made of seal gut, toy blocks made of wood, and containers made of clay.

That made me wonder, will more and more plastic objects begin to make their way into the Burke Museum’s permanent collections as a reflection of this shift in material culture?

I asked Rebecca Andrews, ethnology collections manager, and she pointed me towards several objects in the ethnology collection that are either partially or fully comprised of plastic. For example:

My Month Without Plastic: I Survived

 

The plastic waste generated during my month without plastics.

I made it! I survived a month "without" plastic. I managed to mostly avoid purchasing new plastic but still left a small trail of plastic waste behind (see the photo to the right).

It’s less than I expected, which is somewhat of a relief, but I still cringe when I think about this waste still being around for decades after this challenge is over.

We forget about our trash rather quickly when we throw something “away,” but “away” is still somewhere. One of the walls in the Burke's Plastics Unwrapped exhibit is covered with 3,000 plastic bags–the number used every single second by people like me, who hadn’t thought about the consequences of common consumption. I believe as people who can make choices for ourselves, we have a duty to become more aware of our impact and to make a change.

Parrington artifacts: A collector's story



Vernon L. Parrington in his office at the University of
Oklahoma, ca. 1905. Photograph courtesy of Sarah Parrington.

Objects in museums hold many stories—often of their makers and users, and also, sometimes, of their collectors.

That's the case with several beautiful Native American artifacts recently donated to the Burke Museum from the family of Vernon Louis Parrington, a longtime English professor at the University of Washington (UW) in the early 1900s.

Parrington was born in Illinois in 1871. He graduated from Harvard College in 1893 and taught English for four years at Emporia College in Kansas before moving on to teach at the University of Oklahoma.

My Month Without Plastic: Wrapped Up

By Samantha Porter


Not only have I had to rethink how and what types of foods I purchase during this month without plastics challenge, but it's also made me rethink other aspects of my life. Have you ever noticed how many everyday items you use are either made of plastic or wrapped up in it?

Plastics are literally everywhere! They're surrounding my shampoo, kitchen sponges and laundry detergent. They're in my clothes, face wash (what do you think those little microbeads are?) chewing gum, and dental floss. Even the little plastic aglet on the end of my shoe laces. It's a fact: plastics exist in my life and in my home.

I certainly can't avoid all plastics and there are some that I don't want to avoid. Can you imagine having a glass shampoo bottle in the shower? That's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Even though there are some plastics I can't easily avoid, I've found ways to lessen the collateral damage of my overall consumption.

My Month Without Plastic: Unexpected Nutrition Overhaul



By Samantha Porter

In last week's post, I was just starting to realize how much effort and planning it would require for me to avoid plastic waste while shopping for groceries. This process is a bit clumsy at first, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

What will I eat??
Before leaving for the store, I think through exactly what I'm going to purchase so I make sure to bring the right jars and reusable bags with me to carry my groceries. Though it is a relative hassle, it's given me the opportunity to be more mindful about what I eat.

My Month Without Plastic: Starting at the Store

By Samantha Porter

Plastic, plastic, plastic!

In my last post, I vowed to rethink my relationship with plastics by taking a look at what plastic products are in my life and trying to not purchase or use any new plastic for one month. But first, let's set some realistic ground rules...

There are some plastics in my life that I won't be able to avoid. For example, look down, see they keyboard in front of you? Plastic. What about the phone to your left? Plastic. Or the amputated T-Rex figurine to your right (am I the only one that has that?)? It's plastic (with paperclip prosthesis, of course).

I won't be discarding the lid to my reusable water bottle (because it's plastic) or getting rid of my computer mouse or the plastic case for my cell phone. This challenge isn't about deprivation, it's about conscious living. But, I do publicly vow, Burke Blog readers, that I will not repurchase my favorite (as of late) modern invention: press and seal wrap (mmmmmm…so brilliant).

My Month Without Plastic: The Challenge

By Samantha Porter

The Burke recently opened a new exhibit, Plastics Unwrapped, that explores how material culture was changed–rapidly and significantly–by plastics. Plastics are everywhere and they'll stay in landfills and in our oceans for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

That got me thinking about the plastics in my life. I consider myself to have a fairly small ecological footprint overall: I don’t own a car, I buy locally when I can, and I'm above average in my knowledge of recycling protocol *dust off shoulders.* But when it comes to plastics, I realized that so much of what I purchase comes wrapped in plastic packaging. Even if it is recyclable – it never entirely disappears. We can't simply recycle things into non-existence.

The Carved Legacy of Snohomish Cultural Leader William Shelton

 

William Shelton, Model Story Pole,
Snohomish (Tulalip Indian Reservation),
Southern Coast Salish. Ca. 1920s.

By Christy Hansen
Guest writer, Ethnology

From the late nineteenth-century through the early decades of the twentieth century, white American culture embraced the notion of the Native American culture as rapidly disappearing. The popular visual iconography of the totem pole, along with the feathered war bonnet and teepee, had come to be interpreted as an exotic and spellbinding relic of a "savage" "vanishing race" by whites, and miniature carved model totem poles became popular souvenirs from curio shops to commemorate a visit to a Native village along the northern Northwest Coast. Urban stores, such as the landmark Ye Olde Curiosity Shop in Seattle, Washington (founded in 1899), offered model totem poles for sale, as well, to those who may never even have traveled to villages of the Haida, Tsimshian or Tlingit - northern Northwest Coast Native cultures from which totem poles originated.

The totem pole, which had become a symbol of "a generalized American Indianess," was not a traditional art form of the Southern Coast Salish – the grouping of over fifty autonomous Native American tribes which populate the Puget Sound Basin in Washington State.

Amongst the Coast Salish peoples, traditional religious beliefs did not tolerate extroverted art forms such as the heraldic totem poles of the northern Northwest Coast cultures; thereby, making the circa 1920s Snohomish (a group of the Southern Coast Salish) model totem, or story, pole (pictured at right) so fascinating.

Cairns: Messengers in Stone

A beinakerlingar in Iceland.

By David B. Williams

Cairns – seemingly random man made stacks of rocks – can be surprisingly rich in stories and meaning. For thousands of years, cairns have been used by people to connect to the landscape and communicate with others. But what are they communicating?

The word "cairn" dates back to 16th century Scotland and comes from the Gaelic carn, or “heap of stones.” It refers to stone piles ranging from a simple stack to elaborate mounds totalling hundreds of rocks marking Scottish burial sites - some more than 4,000 years old.

Drawing conclusions: One geologist's glimpse into ancient marine life



A fossil found at the Metaline Falls quarry.

Fossils are an important key to understanding life on our planet. They can tell us a lot about creatures who inhabited the Earth millions of years before us. Finding a fossil is one thing. Figuring out what the fossil once was, is another. That’s where geologists like Ed East come in.

Ed is a retired geologist and longtime Burke Museum volunteer and donor with a keen eye for identifying fossils. But when he recently was stuck while trying to identify rare fossils, he looked for a creative approach to discovering what they were and started drawing.

I sat down with Ed on his last day as a volunteer at the Burke Museum. After more than 30 years he had a lot of memories and research to sort through. He pulled out a file folder and spread dozens of fossil drawings across his desk, but before he could start describing them, a photograph caught his eye. Ed gently unpinned the old photo of a clean-shaven young man on his graduation day. "This is me when I attended school here," he said with a smile.

Isaac the African lion goes Down Under

Isaac, a mounted African lion who spent nearly 30 years in Seattle and was very popular at last year's Meet the Mammals event, has a new home at Museum Victoria in Australia.

Jeff Bradley, mammalogy collection manager at the Burke Museum, took time off from his recent Australian vacation to visit Isaac in his new home.

"Last year, I got a call from Mardi Newman, a local benefit auctioneer, asking if we'd have any use for a mounted African Lion called Isaac," Jeff said. "A friend of hers, Renee Mills, had recently died, and had left quite a collection of African artifacts and specimens, most of which were going to auction.”

Cloudy with a chance of horned lizards

Many people go to Mexico for a relaxing beach vacation. But Burke scientists spent their "summer vacation" searching the desert for signs of the elusive horned lizard.

Horned lizards are especially diverse, including sixteen species that vary dramatically from each other (picture Thanksgiving dinner, when you're wondering how that crazy cousin could POSSIBLY be related to you).

Some give live birth like humans, while others lay eggs. Some can squirt blood out of their eye as a defense mechanism against predators, while others can’t. Not to mention, horn and tail lengths vary dramatically between the species. How, where, and why did these lizards adapt so differently from one another?

Piecing together Patagonia's ancient vegetation

Fossil site in Patagonia, Argentina.

Most people hardly notice what's on the ground beneath their feet. But to researchers like Regan Dunn, a graduate student studying paleobotany at the University of Washington, fallen leaves provide invaluable clues to understanding how climate change impacted life on earth - and how our actions today will shape the future.

Regan is part of a team led by Caroline Strömberg, Burke Curator of Paleobotany, that is studying 40 to 18 million-year-old plant and animal fossils found in Patagonia, Argentina. “This was a time with major climate change and some extinction events, so we really want to understand how vegetation was affected by these changes.”

To understand the impact of climate change on Patagonia’s vegetation, they set out to reconstruct what types of vegetation existed in ancient Patagonia. To collect data, Regan visited Costa Rica - which has a modern climate similar to that of ancient Patagonia.

What do you want to protect? Conservation Candids

Nature photos are beautiful and inspiring. They also make us think twice about the world around us – and what we stand to lose if we don't protect the places that matter to us.

From the bird’s nest in your backyard to that spot on the hiking trail where you feel totally alone… from the tiny park down the block to a tree frog half a world away… what matters to you?

Conservation Candids
The 75 images in our International Conservation Photography (ICP) Awards exhibit recognize excellence in conservation photography, but we know the desire to capture beautiful moments in the natural world extends far beyond this exhibit (and our limited wall space!).

A little "Eye Spy," anyone?

Want to play a little "Eye Spy?" Test your nature knowledge with these sneak preview photos featured in the International Conservation Photography (ICP) Awards exhibit at the Burke Museum through November 25, 2012.

Eye spy a mellow mamma and her curious calf, who was very "friendly" with the photographer when he took their picture near an island in the South Pacific known for the same quality. Where are they?

Photo by Ryan Hellard (zoomed in for Eye Spy)

A homecoming for Sooke the orca

Puget Sound Southern Resident orcas swim off the shore
of San Juan Island in August 2011. (Photo: Cathy Britt)

The return of the J, K and L Pod Southern Resident orcas to their home waters near the San Juan Islands this week came on the heels of another homecoming of sorts. The Burke returned the skeletal remains of Sooke (also known as Victoria), a former member of the L pod, to her new home at the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor. 



When three-year-old Sooke (L-112) washed ashore near Long Beach, WA in early February,researchers examined her remains to try and determine how she died. Shortly after, the Whale Museum began cleaning her skeleton to make it a permanent part of the museum.

Unearthing a Fossil: Giant Turtle Edition

We're often asked what it takes to get a fossil out of the ground and ready for research and museum display. The answer: it can take weeks, months or even years worth of work.

In this short time-lapse video, Burke Museum fossil preparator Bruce Crowley walks us through the process with our giant turtle fossil—from digging it out of the ground and wrapping it in a jacket, to chipping away tiny bits of rock with a series of miniature jack hammers.

Science News Roundup: Mega crocs, mega fires and enamel-sporting crayfish!

Does this mean crayfish should brush?

A University of Iowa scientist has announced the discovery of the largest "true crocodile" in East Africa. At 27 feet long, Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni probably could have swallowed the 4-foot tall humans who lived alongside (but not too close!).

Analysis of a genetic database of horses indicates that domestic horses originated in the steppes of modern-day Ukraine, southwest Russia and west Kazakhstan and expanded out from there around 160,000 years ago. The herds were repeatedly restocked with wild horses as they spread across Eurasia, possibly by taking mares from the wild.

SCIENCE!!! Comics - Episode Seven: We heart WILD River Otters!

This week's comic goes out to all of nature's cute critters that we love and adore and want to take home with us. Still, most animals are better off in their natural habitats. It's better for us to love and appreciate them for what they are—wild animals.

You can see wild river otters around Washington state. Try spotting them from a high lookout (like a bridge or the top of a hill) near their feeding areas. Learn more about river otters and how to live with them if you find them as your neighbors (hint: don't let them den under your porch). If you see an otter (or other wildlife) that looks like it might need help, contact PAWS.