Tour

The special exhibition „climate and man. life in eXtremes” deals with the question how the development of the climate is connected to the evolution of animals, plants and humans. The exhibition has an unusually wide scope: from six million years ago far into the future.

At first the visitors come to know what climate actually is, why it changes and how the climate of past times can be reconstructed. They meet researchers who gain their information from the bottom of the sea or the highest strata of the Earth’s atmosphere.
 
In the main part of the exhibition the visitors – lead by the climate curve – walk through the past six million years. Within a designed landscape they pass petrified leaves which fell to the ground in an autumn 400 000 years ago. They meet huge mammoth skeletons, a sabre-toothed cat and the mummy of the mammoth baby “Dima”.
 
Eight separate rooms show – partly by unique findings – how humans have dealt with their environment: burnt bones from the oldest known fire of the world mark the beginning of the use of fire as an element which very soon became indispensable. Another topic is hunting; here, the oldest wooden hunting weapons of the world are on display.
 
In modern times the dependence of humans from climate and environment seemingly dissolves and changes. Now humans themselves exert influence on these variables. The design of the last part of the exhibition deals with the possible consequences of these interferences and hazards a view into the future. What will the future climate be like? There are many possibilities, but one thing is certain: the close interdependence of climate and man.