Neanderthals' Photo Album

By Alyssa Cohen and Rachel Stein

🚀  TIP

tl;dr? Here is a recording of the project’s storyboard.

Shorthand:

• AMNH – American Museum of Natural History
• Hall – Hall of Human Origins

Concept Overview

This project complements the Neanderthal diorama in the Hall of Human Origins (Hall) at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City.

Our intervention aims to promote scientific literacy by helping visitors imagine scientifically realistic alternatives for what Neanderthals looked like and how they behaved.

Statement of Need

The human evolution dioramas in the Hall are meant to help visitors visualize what our hominid ancestors looked like and how they behaved in their respective environments. Their goal is to bring paleoanthropological evidence to life. However, visitors can easily misinterpret the dioramas’ realism as objective truth. In reality, the dioramas are scientifically informed artistic tableaux resulting from the work of scientists and sculptors. Currently, the AMNH does not help visitors understand this–at least in this exhibition.

Target Audience

This project is intended for the general public visiting the Hall in-person.

"The Museum welcomes roughly five million visitors annually from New York City and from around the globe, including hundreds of thousands of K–12 students and teachers" – AMNH

Concept Description

To achieve our learning goal of helping visitors build scientific literacy, we must capture and engage their attention. This is particularly challenging because the Hall’s displays are densely packed. Even a reasonably small number of visitors makes the space feel crowded.

Therefore, rather than adding additional displays, we will use high-quality digital projection to make the Neanderthal diorama appear to change. In addition to saving space, this approach has the advantage of encouraging visitors to engage with the project without requiring them to download a mobile app or click through a kiosk menu. The following section, § Setup, explains this approach further.

Setup

What is Hologauze?

According to Holotronica, the makers of Hologauze:

"Hologauze^® is the original and best solution for creating large-scale holographic illusions with digital projection. Hologauze^® is the only patented and fully silvered projection gauze available with unparalleled levels of transparency, brightness, contrast, and viewing angle range." – Holotronica

In practice, we use the branded product as a generic stand-in for holographic gauze that supports high-quality digital projections (think “Kleenex” for “facial tissues”). Because cost and similar factors were not part of our class project, we could choose a highly regarded product without in-depth product research or comparisons, including costs (e.g., material and setup costs, energy consumption).

Why digital projection?

• Our delivery method reduces but does not eliminate friction for all visitors by asking far less of them. For example, they will not need to download a mobile app or click through menus on a kiosk.
• Our intervention aims to be self-explanatory to sighted visitors. Still, we hope they will read the captions above (surtitles), listen to the audio (on the web page), or read the transcript (on the web page) to enhance their experience.
• Regrettably, visitors with low vision or blindness will probably still require their smartphones. The exhibition is too compact and crowded to play the audio “out loud.” Doing so might also increase friction for some visitors with sonic frictions (e.g., some people with autism). Visitors can access the web page directly by scanning the QR code next to the diorama (see Physical Setup below).

Physical Setup

• Hologauze will be placed directly behind the diorama’s glass. Our video will be projected onto the Hologauze every five minutes, visually altering the Neanderthal mannequins and their environment.
• Visitors can scan a QR code, bringing them to a web page (see Web Page) with two versions of the accompanying audio narration. One version will include an audio description, and the other will not. The page will also include a transcript of both narration versions and a verbal description of the diorama.
• The audio description and verbal description are primarily intended for visitors with low vision or blindness. Further, to best support visitors with low vision or blindness, the QR code display will follow best practices: it will be large, printed in contrasting colors, and with sonic and haptic cues.
• The audio narration (without verbal description) will sync with the projection, starting when the video begins.
• Captions will appear at the top of the Hologauze screen (surtitles). Putting them at the top rather than the bottom will make them visible to more people in the crowded space.

Web Page

Mobile mockup

Why Neanderthals?

This project focuses on the Neanderthal diorama (rather than another early human species) because they have long gripped popular imagination. Neanderthals (formally: Homo neanderthalensis) are modern humans (formally: Homo sapiens) closest human relatives. They are the closest species genetically as well as behaviorally. While they are extinct, this closeness makes them most easily relatable.

🔍  WHO?

§ Storyboard introduces Neanderthals. For an in-depth introduction, see “Who were the Neanderthals?” by the Natural History Museum (in London).

⚠️  ACCURACY

The study of early modern humans is a highly active and rapidly evolving field. Therefore:

• Reputable resources may have conflicting information, depending on when they were last updated.
• While this project makes a concerted effort to reflect the current state of research as of May 2024 (see § Works Consulted), its focus is on museum accessibility and digital design, not anthropology.

♬  RACIAL FEATURES

Our project does not change racial features. However, we list them below to highlight that some conventions of depicting Neanderthals may still be (unintentionally) heavily influenced by the biases of their discoverers in the 19th century.

Some known unknowns about Neanderthals:

• Racial features:
  • Amount of body hair
  • Eyelid shape
  • Nose cartilage shape
  • Skin color
• Lifestyle features:
  • Clothing is dependent on regional factors, such as weather & available resources
  • Diet is dependent on the regional availability of flora and fauna
  • Facial hair grooming (e.g., may have used obsidian as razors)
  • Shelters (e.g., caves, rocky outcrops)

Storyboard

🎞️  RECORDING

Click here for a recording of the storyboard scenes with voice-over.

Storyboard-specific:

Opening scene

[As the narration begins, inspirational/curiosity-provoking music plays softly in the background. Examples: "Rising Star" by TURPAK or "Cat Walk" by Roie Shpigler ]

Neanderthals lived in Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. They appeared about 400,000 years ago and became extinct 40,000 years ago.

[Display "50,000 years ago" caption.]
[Zoom in on western France. Display "Western France" caption at maximum zoom.]

[Display fades to black.]

Intro Scene

Here, we have a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal campsite that archaeologists found in western France. But how do you know that what you're looking at is real? It might not be. Scientists used a lot of real evidence to create this scene, but how they interpret it might be wrong. Let's explore some other realistic possibilities... following scientific evidence, of course!

Hair Scene

[Hair changes appear on the mannequins one by one when mentioned.]

Let's start with their hair. Scientists can't know what color every Neanderthal's hair was or how they styled it. DNA gives us clues but not exact answers. Like us, some Neanderthals had brown hair that they braided. Some were bald with red beards. Others had short, gray hair.

[Display returns to default state.]

Clothing Scenes

[New items appear when named.]

Did Neanderthals wear clothes? Probably. We know they sewed with needles made of animal bones. In this scene, the female in the middle is preparing an animal hide, probably to make clothes. During the hot French summer, a female might have worn a light dress or a straw hat to protect her from the sun. Neanderthals at least wore underwear. {Boxers with pink hearts appear on the male Neanderthal.} Oops! It's 50,000 years too early for those.

{The boxers are replaced with a beige loin cloth.} Much better!

[Display returns to default state.]

Food Scene

[Mannequins repositioned. The animal hide (that the younger woman is preparing) disappears.]
[New items appear when named.]

During the summer in France, scientists think Neanderthals gathered fruits, nuts, and seeds. They knew how to use fire and maybe cook some fish for dinner.

[Display returns to default state.]

Recreation Scene

[Animal hide and spear disappear.]
[New items appear when named.]

There's evidence that Neanderthals had rituals. Maybe they collected flowers or played music for a special ceremony. The first modern human-made instruments were flutes, so maybe Neanderthals played them too.

[Display returns to default state.]

Family Scene

[Mannequins repositioned. Animal hide and spear disappear.]
[New items appear when named.]

Like us, Neanderthals had fun with their families and took care of each other. Can you imagine a mom watching her toddler play while grandma holds his baby sister and dad tells dad jokes?

[Display returns to default state.]

Outro Scene

[Display fades to black.]
[Images similar to those below appear as the narrator speaks.]

Just like humans, Neanderthals had different skin tones, diets, and cultures based on where they lived. With the archaeological and DNA evidence we have today, we don't know everything about our evolutionary cousins. Scientists use evidence to help us imagine realistic possibilities, but unless we have a time machine, we can't know for sure! Who knows, with new scientific technology and discoveries, maybe we'll get more answers soon!

[The display fades to black and then returns to the default state (i.e., fully transparent).]

Future Work

If we were to continue this project, the tasks we would like to focus on are listed below.

Content

1. Shorten script- the narration (without audio description) should be 1:30 minutes. at most to reduce the chances of losing the audience’s attention. Visitor feedback would be especially important for this task – e.g., Ask them what their least favorite scene was.
2. Add additional audio description.
3. Add a verbal description of the diorama.
4. Add an article with educational content about Neanderthals, paleoanthropology, and paleogenetics.

Work with

• Anthropologists to verify accuracy.
  • E.g., In the Recreation scene, use flowers that likely grew in western France approximately 50,000 years ago.
• Designers - I am not a designer. Professional expertise would greatly benefit the § Storyboard scenes and Web page designs.
• Improve accessibility by soliciting feedback from [paid] disability consultants, who should include people with blindness, low vision, deafness, and other disabilities.
  • E.g., Is important information missing from the verbal descriptions? Are the verbal descriptions too long? Is it important to include an American Sign Language translation?

Physical layout

• Can a bench or stools be added to allow people to sit while watching the video? This would improve accessibility, and likely visitor engagement, but the Hall is very compact.
• Can the panels on either side of the diorama be relocated to give viewers more space? (see Physical setup).
• Consider applying Hologauze to the other dioramas in exhibition. Will visitors expect and be disappointed that only one diorama is “animated”?

Acknowledgments

People

Thank you very much to following for their time and guidance:

• Rosanna N. Flouty, course instructor, NYU Clinical Associate Professor and Museum Studies Program Director
• Josh Goldblum, Founder and CEO of Bluecadet
• Alice Walker, New Business Strategist at Local Projects
• Shara E. Bailey, NYU Anthropology Professor and faculty member in the department’s Center for the Study of Human Origins

Voice-over (in the recording) was generated by Natural Readers.

Works Consulted

Works that informed our background research