The;
he Battalion
Aggielife
Page 3 • Tuesday, July 6, 1999
Exhibit offers look at life during last Ice Age
IOTkBv
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY
ANTHONY DISALVO AND GUY ROGERS
Store pulls
sexist shirts
BY AARON MEIER
The Battalion
O nce a month, Thomas Lynch is pre
sented with a small piece of history.
The executive director of the Brazos
Valley Museum of Natural History .said Bra
zos Valley residents regularly come to the
museum with a fossilized teeth of animals
that inhabited the area during the last ice
age.
“Ice Age Beasts and Hunters,” the new
exhibit currently being featured by the mu
seum, showcases both the animals and the
early peoples that existed between 30,000
and 10,000 years ago.
“This exhibit is not just about the ani
mals that lived in the United States,” Lynch
said, “but the human animals that hunted
them.”
Over the past 2 million years, there have
been 20 ice ages characterized by glaciers
growing in size and advancing from the
poles. The most recent ice age marked the
dissemination of homo sapiens across the
globe across land bridges resulting from
low sea levels which exposed land bridges,
including the Bering land bridge that the
earliest Americans crossed.
Paleontologist and artist Peter May con
ceived of the idea for the exhibit after con
structing dinosaur exhibits for museums in
New York and Tokyo. The exhibit blends
new pieces including skeletons of a sabre
tooth cat and a giant beaver with the mu
seum’s permanent pieces such as the 8-
foot-tall mastodon that is the focal point of
the museum’s exhibit hall.
Exhibited along with the mastodon is a
sabre tooth cat, which also existed in the
Brazos Valley. The exhibit also has the skull
of an Irish Elk, whose antlers span 12 feet,
and a giant rhinoceros that inhabited Eura
sia.
“The exhibit is about half Old World and
half New World,” Lynch said.
The exhibit features a zebra-like horse
that lived in North America during the lat
est ice age. However, these horses, known
as Hagerman horses, died out near the end
of the Paleolithic Era. The Hagerman hors
es are nearly identical to modern horses ex
cept for the patterns of enamel on its teeth.
Lynch said evidence suggests that man
is partially responsible for the extinction of
the North American horses as well as oth
er animals.
“The horses and the
mammoth/mastodon extinction is also sus-
“[Early man] had lan
guage, they had ritual,
they believed in an
afterlife”
— Thomas Lynch
Executive director,
Brazos Valley Museum
of Natural History
piciously close to the entry of people,”
Lynch said. “Probably there is a combina
tion of that with genetic problems and cli
matic changes.”
“Ice Age Beasts and Hunters” also fea
tures a skeleton of a giant beaver that could
grow up to 8 feet long with 6-inch-long
teeth. While there is no evidence of these
beavers building dams or lodges. Lynch
said the construction of dams is possible.
“The reason for these teeth is that they
are using them heavily to cut wood,” Lynch
said. “And if they are cutting all that wood,
chances are they are making dams, too.”
The second part of the exhibit exam
ines the role of early man during the ice
age. Lynch said the exhibit documents the
large technological leaps made by man
30,000 years ago. It is also at this time that
the earliest skeletons of homo sapiens
have been found. Lynch said these skele
tons also share the racial characteristics
with their modern counterparts.
“In Europe, they look like modern Eu
ropeans,” Lynch said. “In Asia, they look
like Asians. There is a little bit of dispute
in America whether they look like Amer
ican Indians or not, but the fact is these
are people like us. They had language,
they had ritual, they believed in an after
life.”
A piece in the exhibit recreating a bur
ial site from Italy demonstrates this belief
in an afterlife. The display shows a young
man who was buried with a flint blade in
his hand, a shell bracelet and various oth
er ivory and bone adornments. The body
was also colored with red ochre, a pig
mentation which Lynch said symbolized
blood.
The museum also has a recreation of
some cave drawings which primarily de
pict animals.
Lynch said there is disagreement
among scientists as to the purpose of the
cave drawings. Marks on the animal rep
resentations have been interpreted both as
spear marks meant to cast hunting magic
before the hunt and as counting marks for
hunting matches.
Lynch said the seclusion of the cave
drawings indicates a ceremonial nature to
the drawings.
“People didn’t live much in caves, they
lived in open rock shelters,” Lynch said.
“Caves were dank, dark and uncomfort
able. So technically, the term ‘cave man’
is incorrect.”
'7Y
PLANO, Texas (AP) — There’ll
f)e no more trash-talkin’ about
omen at J.C. Penney.
After a feminist group com-
)lained, the department store
*hain announced it is pulling a line
f basketball-themed T-shirts
Simed at young men with lines that
include: “Your game is as ugly as
lour girl,” and “You like that
wove? So does your girl.”
■ The “trash talk” line of appar-
manufactured by AND1 Basket-
Jail, is offensive to women, said
re leader of the group that com-
lained.
“It’s a put-down of girls in the
rocess of putting down a sports
ponent,” said Martha Burke,
Jresident of the Center for Ad-
Ancement of Public Policy in
jl/ashington, D.C.
1 “The strong implication is that
iris are the property of boys to be
laded like baseball cards,” she
said. “It’s an insulting, dehuman-
EdltOf hjng thing, and we have enough
p^l incivility in society without this
gender-based stuff.”
ity EiM Burke said several people con-
- tacted her group to complain about
U lie shirts, and that she later de-
jnion Enounced the apparel in the center’s
newsletter, The Washington Femi
nist Faxnet, which is faxed to sev-
eial thousand people around the
country.
J.C. Penney Co. Inc. spokes
woman Stephanie Brown said the
AntW“llano-based retailer got enough
jenes; MWjmplaints that it will no longer
carry shirts that specifically target
[Women. Other AND1 apparel will
istill be available.
I “We put the T-shirts out think-
|)g we wouldn’t have a problem,”
Brown said. “But we are having
fcme concerns coming our way,
BreaiKi^lid they are valid concerns.”
igsonPW Burke said she welcomed Pen-
•e l 6 ^' 8 ^ ec i s ’ on an d w iU target oth-
' ’ ■ |r retailers, including Footlocker
^olnd Just for Feet, that still carry the
l^ 018, klUrtc
rgv; 84$ SlllrtS -
B Officials with AND1, based in
lennsylvania, were not available
for comment Monday. A recorded
i|hone message said their offices
ere closed for the day.
The company produces dozens
f shirts with phrases such as
Tlirn on the disposal, your game’s
garbage.” Most of them have noth-
lig to do with gender.
aer
9
NEED A JOB:
THE KIDS KLUB IS SEEKING
STAFF FOR THE
1999 FALL SEMESTER
Kate
College Station
* Are you a fun person?
» Do you enjoy working with kids?
* Looking for valuable work experience?
* Are you available Mon.-FrL, 2:45 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.?
» If you answered yes to any of these questions,
we may have a job for you.
Applications are now being accepted for
the Kids Klub After School Program
at Central Park Office
thru July 12th at 5 p.m.
Employment to begin August 10 th
College Station ISD is an Equal Opportunity Employer
For more information call:
"CH< XIO
Male & Female KAJU 764-3486
Staff needed!
Life isn’t that hard.
It’s just those
damn tests that
make it so difficult.
Classes begin in Aggieland:
GMAT July 8
GRE July 14
TOEFL July 19
LSAT July 26 & Aug. 15
DAT/OAT July 8 & Aug. 29
CALL 1-800 <igu>
KAP-TEST
www.kaplan.com
World Loader in Test Prep
rELCHICCT:
Weekly Drink Specials!
Monday
Domestic Long-neck Bottles 99ct
Tuesday
Margaritas 99(t
Wednesday
Draft Beer 99<t mugs, $1.99 goblets
Thursday
Margaritas 99<t
Friday and Saturday
Largoritas (tall margorita) $4.49
Sunday
Draft Beer 99ct mugs, $1.99 goblets
Muncho Luncho
All you can eat, M-F, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. $5.99
Wednesday Enchilada Special $4.99
20% Discount w/ student ID on Sundays after 5 p.m