CCEHN scientists @phaeno museum Wolsfburg
G. Di Maida
November 2023
During two days of October, some of the members of the CCEHN project met with a large and diverse audience within the „Meet the Scientist “ happening at the phaeno museum in Wolfsburg. The phaeno is an experimental science museum especially dedicated to kids and the youngsters, where our research team was kindly hosted by Nils Otto.
We had the chance to introduce to an audience of non-specialists, including the numerous families with children, main topics of our project, namely the impact of climate on the human landscape and the relevance of interdisciplinarity in the study of the human past, combining different methods and bringing together the expertise from several disciplines. We did this by presenting some of the more specific focuses that are part of the CCEHN project and its collaborators’ daily work: the importance of botanical investigations for the complete reconstruction of past environments, specifically through pollen analyses; the local wonder of the spears and wood tools from Schöningen; the climate change through time and its influence on human populations; and of course the Neanderthals, with their material culture and once again the mighty link with the challenges they had to endure following the severe climatic fluctuation they must have experienced during the several thousands of years of their lives in Europe.
A location like the phaeno museum, which kindly invited and hosted us, has shown to be the perfect spot to bridge the distances between researchers and the public. The interest sparked in both kids and adults was a confirmation of a good enterprise that we hope to repeat soon in the near future.
