Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 55. (Budapest 1963)
Nemeskéri, J.: Human evolution and prehistoric man. The new anthropological exhibition of the Hungarian Natural History Museum
ANNALES HISTÖRICO-NATURALES MUSEI NATIONALIS HUNGARICI Tomus 55. PARS MUSEOLOGICA 1963. „Human Evolution and Prehistoric Man" The New Anthropological Exhibition of the Hungarian Natural History Museum By J. NEMESKÉRI , Budapest The new exhibition of the Natural History Museum, „Human Evolution and Prehistoric Man" was opened to the public in the Hungarian National Museum on the 26th October, 1962. An exhibition of the same subject was destroyed in 1956 in the Museum. The purpose of the exhibition, arranged in two rooms, is a scientific and easily intelligible demonstration of the origin of man, further, in how far the uniformly developed human species changed in the possession of its human characteristics, and how this process led to the evolvement of the human races. The exhibition is divided into two main parts and eleven subdivisions. The main room shows, partitioned into eight units, the material evidence and the scientific proofs of the evolution of man and the development of the human races. The smaller, semicircular room displays, according to the archeological periods, prehistoric man in Hungary. The exhibition terminates in a display concerning anthropological methodology shown in two cases. In designing the exhibition, it was our endeavour to express as pregnantly as possible the concept of evolution and the common origin of living human forms, even within each case. In every case, we have followed a threefold division by presenting (a) material evidence, (b) anatomical comparison and evaluation, and (c) the demographic characteristics in connection with higher nerve activity, labour, and conditions of life. By consistently adhering to the divisions mentioned above, and utilizing every technical possibility of demonstration (deep dioramas, the dividing into phases — by the help of an electrical hookup of automatic switches — of the higher nerve activities and the making of tools, rotating series of lighted pictures, etc.), we strove to attain the unity and easy intelligibility of the exhibition. Our project was the demonstration of the essence of evolution, and all material evidence as well as the single finds are subservient to this end. In the introductory part, a geological and chronological table informs the visitor on the evolutionary history of life, projecting the periods which led to the evolvement of man. The second and also the biggest case of the exhibition summarizes our information on the evolution of the animal kingdom, and within it that of the Primates. Principally by a phylogenetical tree, the present day Primates and their Tertiary forrerunners with their lines of descent are shown by plaster casts and several 37 Természettudományi Múzeum £vkönyve
