Natural, Cultural History museum is growing
A step into the UO’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History puts visitors into a world of treasures, artifacts and fossils pulled from locations around the state, but also an amazing collection of materials from around the world. And the museum is growing through a multi-million dollar expansion. The museum is the designated repository for artifacts and fossils found on Oregon’s public lands.
“This expansion allows us to better protect the deep history of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest and to share that history with everyone,” said Jon Erlandson, museum director.
A newly completed $2.8 million wing solves a space crunch so severe that many artifacts and fossils had been stashed in World War II-era buildings around campus.
State law requires public agencies to protect and preserve such items, so funds for the addition included $2.2 million from the 2005 highway bill authorized at the request of U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio. Private gifts and grants covered the rest. The new wing also features a public galleria, funded mainly by the Ford Family Foundation.
The recently completed work is part of a three-phase, $9.65 million project to create a unified museum complex. The next phase will add a new exhibit hall on geological and natural history of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, as well as a new changing exhibits area.
Public agencies call in UO archaeologists when highway and public works projects unearth historical sites. The museum’s research division also conducts field schools and grant-funded research, working closely with Oregon’s Native American tribes — activities that also add to the growth of collections.
Research at the Paisley Caves, led by museum scientist Dennis Jenkins, unearthed the oldest human DNA found in the Americas, as well as a variety of human-made artifacts dating to some 14,000 years ago, to the earliest known presence of the Clovis culture — or very possibly pre-dating Clovis. In 2009, Jenkins was awarded the distinguished Earle A. Chiles Award from the High Desert Museum in Bend.
