Paläon, the Museum that houses the famous Schönigen spears.

 The Paläon Museum after completion in July 2013.  Its mirror clad facade makes it blend into its background at any time of day

The Paläon Museum is a research and experience centre in Schöningen, near Helmstadt, where five wooden spears were found in the brown coal layers of an opencast mine.   It is a museum and visitor centre, which was built exclusively for the exhibition of eight Schöningen Spears, and showing the people of the pleistocene era and their living conditions at the time the spears were made.

 

Huntsmen with their spears, from a series of pictures made from overlaid sheets of paper.

 

Five of the Schöningen Spears, the oldest known objects made by mankind.

 

The core of the exhibition is the eight Schöningen Spears presented in a display case. The preservation of spears was performed using water-soluble resin that stabilized the weakened wood.  They had previously been preserved for many years in a dark stainless steel tank filled with distilled water, and were later displayed in transparent water containers at the Lower Saxony State Exhibition in 2007 and 2008.

The exhibition area is devoted to research into the Schöningen area and Pleistocene archeology, and also designed as an extracurricular place of learning.   The Museum is located on the edge of a lignite opencast mine in Schöningen,  south of Helmstedt, in which all the artefacts were found.   From the building itself, visitors have a direct view of the opencast mine.  On the museum´s 34-hectare outdoor site, wild horses, similar to those that lived at the time, graze on wild plants similar to those of the warm, interglacial period, illustrating the natural environment of around 300,000 years ago.

 

Animals from the Pleistocene period in the long gallery, complete with some terrifying noises of animal being hunted and killed by shieking hunters.  All a bit too blood curdling for me!

The skull and tusk of a mammoth.

 

The two feet at the back left, show a big mammoth´s foot and a smaller, present day  elephant´s foot for comparison.

A very hairy Pleistocene man, holding the skull of one of his hunted animals.

 

The skulls on the display show Neanderthal man, and the white skull of modern man.

 

A three dimensional map, showing the area after the retreat to the right, of the last ice age.

 

It was a very interesting museum, although not suitable for young children.  The building itself was rather clinical, although when some trees have grown up around it, it should have a more homely feel.   I was particularly interested to see the spears, and our guide showed us a replica of one,  and also a modern javelin, and both were of similar length and thickness. 

We visited on a damp, rainy day, so we did not have a chance to go outside and practise our hunting skills in a special area set aside for amateur spear throwing at distant model mammoths und bears!

 

We had a good afternoon out, and the after exhibition Currywurst and beer in the cafe went down a treat.  There were no mammoth burgers on the menu!