Is mankind really the be-all and end-all of creation? Bonn's Bundeskunsthalle museum tackles the question in a new exhibition, telling a tale of 100,000 years of evolution from stone tools to PlayStations.
Image: C. Locke
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A brief history of humankind
What distinguishes humans from animals? What is culture? Did Homo sapiens and Neanderthals co-exist at any time in history? A museum in Bonn answers these questions by revisiting 100,000 years of cultural history.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/A. Avital
From molecules to the nuclear bomb
Life and death are inseparable. The exhibition "A Brief History of Humankind" in Bonn's Bundeskunsthalle museum shows how, 13.8 billion years ago, molecules began to connect and turn into structured organisms. The above video still by US artist Bruce Conner shows what could spell the end of evolution: the nuclear bomb.
Image: B. Connor
A turning point: fire
Remains of the oldest Eurasian hearth dating back 780,000 years were discovered on the banks of the river Jordan. The ability to control fire was a turning point in evolutionary history that moved mankind to the top of the food chain. Fire gave light, kept people warm; people cooked over a fire and used it to make stone tools. It was a gathering place - a Stone Age TV.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
The birth of mankind
Homo sapiens had a fleeting chin, slanting forehead and a narrow brow ridge. The above skull is about 100,000 years old and was found in Israel, where Homo sapiens co-existed with Neanderthals for quite some time. All of the artifacts displayed in the Bonn exhibition are from Israel - and it's the first time they are on view in Europe.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem
Shaping culture
This Neanderthal skull was unearthed in the Amud Cave in Galilee. Anatomically, it is nothing like the skull of Homo sapiens: the chin is even more fleeting, the back of the head shows an indentation. These early humans not only fulfilled their basic needs, archaeologists also found they held burial rituals and other forms of culture.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
Togetherness
What makes us human? Family plays a huge role. Apart from historical objects, the exhibition also presents works by contemporary artists. US sculptor Charles Ray's 1993 "Family Romance" shows the fine line that connects family. In this sculpture, two parents hold their offspring's hands; however, the normalcy of a nuclear family is disrupted as both son and daughter are as tall as mom and dad.
Image: R. Charles
Gods made of stone
Humans started forming figurines depicting gods about 8,000 years ago, at a time when people were settling, planting fields and forming communities. They created goddesses they could pray to for good harvests and fertility. The phallic shape in the above photo could also symbolize a male god. Lines and etchings indicate abstract portraits.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
External memory aid
Unlike animals, humans can collect and write down knowledge. The Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia began to record information and numbers. This clay tablet was inscribed between 4,000 and 3,100 BC, paving the way for the complex memory systems needed to build cities and empires.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
Money instead of shells
This coin made of electrum, a gold and silver alloy, is the oldest-known coin in the world. Embossed with the picture of a grazing stag, it is from the seventh century BC. Of course, other forms of payment already existed: sea shells, pearls and promissory notes.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/Y. Hovav
Home sweet home
In the third century BC, Arad was a flourishing business center at the crossroads of two trade routes in the Middle East. For 350 years, it was a magnificent city of palaces, temples and homes. The above model shows a typical square one-room dwelling with a flat roof, dating back to between 3,000 to 2,650 BC.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/A. Hay
Two-faced progress
In 1912, Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity, a sensation and a scientific revolution. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem owns the original manuscript to E=mc². The mathematical formula embodies the two sides of progress: With it, mankind gained important insight into physics, but it also enabled the creation of the first nuclear bomb.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/A. Avital
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A new exhibition at Bonn's Bundeskunsthalle museum, on show until March 26, is based on the best-seller "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari.
Harari tries the impossible, taking a look at what's been happening on our planet since the Big Bang 13.5 million years ago. A tour through the Bonn exhibition starts with the creation of the universe, as imagined by artists. Another room shows a sunset, or is it a sunrise? Video artist Paul Pfeiffer has merged day and night and raises a central question: what is real, what is illusion?
Supremacy by fire
The exhibition takes visitors though the millennia in three chapters. In all three, survival and extinction are inextricably linked as both the advantages and disadvantages of evolution become clear.
The cognitive revolution sets out with communication - and fire as a major turning point. The oldest hearth is 1.5 million years old and was found in East Africa.
At the start of the next chapter, the agricultural revolution, Homo sapiens has already successfully wiped out big mammals. A stuffed polar bear on a wooden transport box - a sculpture by American artist Mark Dion - symbolizes mankind's destructive zeal.
Hand ax, stone tools, a Gutenberg bible and models of houses encourage visitors to ponder. Where do I come from, where am I headed? Who survives, who vanishes?
Prehistoric artifacts, contemporary art
Chapter three: the scientific revolution and the present. A video wall shows atomic bomb testing in the Bikini Atoll in stark black and white.
Adorning the walls are Harari quotes lamenting the loss of "authentic cultures," professing that "money is the only thing in the world everyone trusts."
Many of the key exhibits are on loan from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, which developed the exhibition to mark its 50th anniversary in 2015.
25 years of Ötzi discovery - the Iceman's secrets
The world's most famous glacier mummy was discovered 25 years ago. Since then, researchers in Italy's South Tyrol region have coaxed tons of secrets from Ötzi's 5,250-year-old body.
Today, Ötzi's final place of rest is the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology. But for a while it wasn't clear which country the mummy would go to. After it was discovered on September 19, 1991, both Austria and Italy laid claim to Ötzi. Official measurements finally revealed that he was found 92.56 meters (303.67 feet) behind the border - on Italy's side.
Image: AP
Unknown identity
At first, however, no one realized what a sensational discovery a couple from Bavaria had made on their hike. It was assumed the body belonged to a tourist who had recently frozen to death. One man claimed the dead John Doe was his uncle, others thought he was a victim of the biblical Deluge. When researchers discovered the truth, the archaeology world was beyond excited.
Image: dapd
Tattooed murder victim
Ötzi had 61 tattoos - no mermaids or kids' names, but lines and crosses. The Stone Age tattoo artist cut Ötzi's skin and filled the wounds with coal. Sounds painful? Not as bad as this: Ötzi was killed by an arrow shot through his shoulder from behind, as researchers at the archaeology museum in Bozen discovered.
Researchers could also find out what Ötzi ate shortly before his death by analyzing the contents of his stomach. His last meal was rich and fatty. It consisted, among other foods, of a Stone Age grain and goat meat.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/EURAC/Marco Samadelli
Modern ailments
Ötzi had many health issues that today's patients are still familiar with. He had cavities, Lyme disease, fleas and a smokers' lung from inhaling camp fire smoke. On top of that, Ötzi was lactose-intolerant and suffered from a helicobacter stomach infection as well as circulation problems. If the arrow hadn't killed him, he would have dropped dead sooner rather than later.
Image: picture alliance/dpa
Material mix
In 2015, the "Ötzi Walkers" hiked through western Germany promoting a Stone Age exhibition. For their clothes, they tried to stay as true as possible to Ötzi's outfits. He wore a brown bear fur hat, goat leather pants and a coat made of a goat-sheep skin mix.
Image: DW/C. Bleiker
Ötzi times two
The glacier mummy was a unique discovery. To give more people access to Ötzi, however, his body was copied in April 2016. Using a 3d-printer, researchers in Bozen created a second Ötzi made of resin, which was then painted with all the details of the original by US paleo-artist Gary Staab. The copy went to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's DNA Learning Center in New York state.