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 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