Risen Apes and Fallen Angels: The New Museology of Human Origins

Abstract There has been a little explosion of “origin” exhibitions in the past few years. The recent bicentennial of Darwin’s birth, in 2009, ushered in a bevy of traveling exhibitions and events. Grand‐scale permanent exhibitions have recently opened at the American Museum of Natural History (the Spitzer Hall of Human Origins) in New York, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins) in Washington, D.C. A new museology is afoot, and some of the recent changes are worth tracking. And let’s not forget the recently opened Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. Even in creationist thinking, where views seem eternally and stubbornly intransigent, there are new fads and museological fashions.