August, 19SS 



FIELD MUSEUM NEWS 



Page S 



STONE AGE HALL EXHIBIT SHOWS MEN OF 250,000 YEARS AGO TURTLES OF THE CHICAGO AREA 



The Hall of the Stone Age of the Old 

 World (Hall C) was completed last month, 

 as announced in the July issue of Field 

 Museum News. 



There is presented herewith an illustration 

 showing another of the diorama groups in 

 the hall — a scene of the Chellean period, 



flint hand ax for hunting. In the distance 

 is a meandering river on the banks of which 

 are a number of animals. Research has 

 revealed only fragmentary facts about this 

 era, and the dim moonlit scene of the 

 Museum exhibit appropriately symbolizes 

 the scantiness of our knowledge. 



Men of the ('hellean Period 

 Life in the period identified with the earliest human remains ever found in Europe, as represented in the 

 Hall of the Stone Age of the Old World. 



approximately 250,000 years ago. Last 

 month an exhibit representing the beginning 

 of art in the Aurignacian period, 35,000 

 years ago, was reproduced in the News. 



The Chellean period is identified with the 

 earliest human remains ever found in Europe. 

 It gets its name from the site at Chelles in 

 northern Prance which is the type station 

 for the period. The climate at this time 

 was mild, and elephants, rhinoceroses and 

 hippopotami wandered over Europe. 



In the Museum group two Chellean 

 hunters are seen squatting in the foreground 

 beside a fire. One of them is making a 



The group is the work of Frederick 

 Blaschke, and the background was painted 

 by Staff Artist Charles A. Corwin. Plans 

 for this group, as for the seven others in 

 the series, were worked out by Henry Field, 

 Assistant Curator of Physical Anthro- 

 pology. 



In a case supplementing this group are 

 casts of the most famous prehistoric remains 

 discovered — those which scientists have 

 labeled Sinanlhropus (the Peking man). 

 Pithecanthropus erectus (Java ape-man), 

 Eoanthropus (Piltdown man), and Homo 

 Heidelbergensis (the Heidelberg man). 



New Petroleum Exhibit 



The former exhibit of liquid petroleum 

 products in Hall 36 has been replaced, 

 through the courtesy of the Standard Oil 

 Company (Indiana), by a synoptic collec- 

 tion intended to indicate the wide ramifica- 

 tion of petroleum products and the many 

 ways in which they affect our daily life. 

 The new collection is installed in a tall 

 case, six feet long and five feet wide. In 

 this case there are fifty-eight specimens 

 covering, in a synoptic way, the wide range 

 of uses of the more than four hundred direct 

 and many thousands of indirect petroleum 

 products. 



Spectacled Bear Received 



A fine male specimen of the rare spectacled 

 bear of northern South America has been 

 presented to the Museum by W. A. Olen 

 and F. D. Hurley of Clintonville, Wisconsin. 



Spectacled bears are related in type to 

 certain Asiatic bears. They inhabit the 

 Andes region from Peru to Colombia. The 

 species makes a striking appearance because 

 of its characteristic white markings, which 

 include rings around the eyes resembling 

 spectacles. 



Bark Cloth 



The fibrous bast of the paper mulberry 

 tree is employed by natives of South Sea 

 islands in making a fabric resembling a fine 

 white cloth, known as "tapa" or "kapa." 

 The sheets of bast are peeled from the tree, 

 soaked in water, and beaten with a wooden 

 mallet until they spread out and remain 

 flat. They are then matted together in 

 large pieces as fine as muslin. Some varieties 

 of tapa cloth are made rather thick and 

 resemble tough wash leather. The material 

 may be dyed and printed, and is easily 

 bleached. The bast of the same tree is 

 also extensively used in Japan and China 

 for making paper of a tenacious quality. 



African bark cloth is prepared by beating 

 the bark of a fig tree until the material is 

 rendered supple. 



An exhibit, installed in Hall 28, shows a 

 specimen of paper mulberry bark after it 

 has been beaten into a thin sheet, and 

 samples of tapa cloth, ornamented with 

 crude designs, as worn by South Sea 

 islanders. — L.W. 



Fine examples of native African wood- 

 craft are on exhibition in Hall D. 



By Karl P. Schmidt 

 Assistant Curator of Reptiles 



Nine easily recognized kinds of turtles 

 are found within a radius of fifty miles from 

 Chicago. Some of these are common through- 

 out the area, while others are local in their 

 distribution, and at least two kinds are 

 found only in the Indiana dune region. 

 Nearly all may be seen among the exhibits 

 in Albert W. Harris Hal! (Hall 18). 



The best-known locally is probably the 

 snapping turtle, well named for its aggres- 

 sive temperament. The "snapper" repre- 

 sents a distinct family confined to the 

 Americas. It has a relatively small shell 

 on the under side. Snappers are regularly 

 on the market in the eastern states, but are 

 not commonly eaten in Chicago 



The common turtles which live in fresh 

 waters in North America are usually known 

 as "terrapins" or "sliders." The Cumber- 

 land terrapin, abundant in the Mississippi 

 drainage, reaches the Chicago area only in 

 the Kankakee and Fox Rivers. It has an 

 elongate red marking on the temple. The 

 geographic turtle is rare in this region, but 

 has been recorded from northern Indiana. 

 Both of these species attain a shell length 

 of about ten inches. 



The small turtles with bright yellow spots 

 on the shell, best known as spotted turtles, 

 are abundant in the swampy areas just 

 south of the Indiana dunes. Also related 

 to the terrapin group is the common painted 

 turtle, easily recognized by the bright red 

 markings along the edges of the shell, light 

 borders to the shields on the back, and a 

 dark pattern on the lower shell. Indiana 

 specimens of the painted turtle have this 

 dark marking narrow, while to the west- 

 ward it becomes a broader and more com- 

 plicated pattern. Most Chicago specimens 

 of it are intermediate between the Indiana 

 and the western forms. 



Two land turtles are found locally. One 

 is Standing's turtle, which has a rather high 

 shell and an imperfectly hinged lower shell 

 that can be partly closed. It forages on 

 land during the summer, but apparently 

 hibernates in the ponds. The box turtle 

 has a still higher dome-shaped shell and a 

 perfectly hinged lower shell, which closes 

 tightly at both front and back. It is 

 exclusively a land turtle, hibernating in 

 sheltered hollows in leaf mold. In this 

 region it is found only in the Indiana dunes. 



The musk turtle is a small species with a 

 disagreeable odor. It is abundant through- 

 out the eastern United States. Rarely more 

 than four inches in length of shell, it is 

 recognizable by its dull, uniform coloration 

 and small-sized lower shell, whose plates 

 are widely separated by soft skin. It 

 represents another exclusively American 

 family of turtles, related to the snapping 

 turtles. 



The soft-shelled turtle, often called the 

 "leatherback" by fishermen, is the strangest 

 in appearance of the local turtles. Its 

 bony shell is covered with cartilage and 

 leathery skin, and, partly for this reason, 

 it is the best of our turtles for soup. Its 

 shell is extremely flat, and its broadly 

 webbed hind feet are a striking adaptation 

 to life in the lakes and streams. 



North America is rich in turtles, especially 

 fresh-water varieties. Including the marine 

 species of the coasts, some sixty-two species 

 of turtles are to be found in the United 

 States. 



The ethnology of primitive Siberian tribes 

 is illustrated in Hall E. 



