Arizona Museum of Natural History
Exploring the Past in Arizona’s Museum of Natural History
Exploring the Past in Arizona’s Museum of Natural History (Arizona Museum of Natural History: 53 N. Macdonald, Mesa, AZ 85201)
What first drew me to the Arizona Museum of Natural History was because its home to famous Dinosaur Mountain. I’m a big fan of paleontology, so I never miss an opportunity to see dinosaurs! The main attraction of the museum is a huge, multi-story diorama where animatronic dinosaurs roar and stomp around like real animals. The exhibit covers three distinct time periods within the Age of Dinosaurs, with environment and plant life corresponding to the different eras. Beyond the animatronic dinosaurs, though, were the real treasure- well-preserved, entire dinosaur skeletons! I’ll never get tired of seeing dino bones, there is no substitute to seeing with your eyes how truly massive those prehistoric beasts really were. While I originally planned to see the dinosaurs and leave, I’m so glad I stayed around to see the other exhibits, because they were even more impressive.
After walking through Dinosaur Hall and seeing many full-display dinosaur skeletons, visitors enter the Southwest Gallery, dedicated to telling the story of the ancient cultures of Arizona. Spanning from the most primitive paleolithic hunter-gatherers to the advanced culture of the Hohokam farmers, this exhibit covers thousands of years of history. My absolute favorite part was the model village. We got to walk through a replica of Hohokam dwellings, and see the many recovered artifacts in their original contexts. I learned about the Hohokam’s ingenious irrigation system, which directed water the Salt River to irrigate thousands of acres of land in the Phoenix area. These massive canals could only be dreamed up in a place like I.D.E.A. museum today, but were the largest irrigation system in the entirety of the New World! The next exhibit focused on Spanish exploration of the Americas, a subject I was a little more familiar with. Still, the museum was very engaging. I even got to go behind bars in a territorial prison, and go panning for gold!
When I visited, the rotating exhibition was about the Cretaceous Seas. One hundred million years ago, the entire continent of North America was split in two by a huge sea, turning the Western half of Arizona into beachfront property! The home town Mesa area was completely underwater at this point, and the museum displayed huge dioramas showing the marine reptiles that dominated that ecosystem. All in all, the Museum of Natural History was an awesome visit on a hot summer day. I saw lots of families making their way through the exhibits, probably just as grateful as I was to be out of the Arizona heat and in an air-conditioned building!
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