Who were Oregon’s first people, and when did they get here? How are ancient Oregon cultures reflected in the traditions of today’s tribes? Visitors to the Museum of Natural and Cultural History can explore these questions at the newly redesigned exhibit Oregon — Where Past is Present.

The exhibit’s grand reopening weekend is set for Nov. 5 and 6 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 1680 East 15th Avenue in Eugene. Admission is free, and the museum will offer half-price family memberships throughout the weekend.   

Under construction since January, the revamped exhibit will feature rare artifacts, enhanced basketry and weaving displays, touchscreen learning stations and an all-new interactive zone titled Paisley Caves and the First Americans.

Through remains like stone tools, woven fibers and even ancient feces, Paisley Caves and the First Americans tells the story of Oregon’s earliest known human occupation. It also tells the more recent story of research at the site by museum archaeologists, and how it’s reshaping long-held theories about the peopling of the Americas.

The latter story begins with Luther Cressman, the museum’s founding director, who in the 1930s asserted that humans and Pleistocene megafauna had coexisted at Paisley Caves.

“No one believed that a human occupation in Oregon could be as ancient as Cressman claimed, and the dating techniques available at that time weren’t reliable enough to change many minds,” said Dennis Jenkins, who in 2002 resumed investigations at the site with the goal of testing Cressman’s conclusions.

Minds started changing after Jenkins and his colleagues uncovered a number of human coprolites, or dried feces, at the site. Subsequent DNA analysis conducted at the University of Copenhagen together with radiocarbon dating of the specimens confirmed that humans had occupied Paisley Caves more than 14,000 years ago, predating Clovis culture — long regarded as the oldest cultural tradition in North America — by more than a thousand years.

In addition to the Paisley display, visitors can explore Oregon’s major cultural regions through lifelike dioramas, interactive touchscreens, and archaeological and historical objects from museum collections, many of which have never before been on public view.

Among the new items slated for display is a mysterious duck sculpture that was uncovered near Mapleton, Oregon, in 1956.

“The duck is unusual. It differs stylistically from typical Columbia River and Northwest Coast stone carvings, and it comes from an area where few stone representations of animals have been found,” said Pamela Endzweig, director of the museum's anthropological collections. “It’s a unique item — and it seems especially appropriate to include it in an exhibit at the University of Oregon.”

A fiber arts display showcases thousands of years of weaving practices — ranging from the oldest basketry fragment ever uncovered in Oregon to historical items from around the Pacific Northwest. Visitors will get a view into the museum’s ongoing fiber artifacts research, and at a nearby interactive station they can try their hand at ancient weaving styles.     

“The museum holds a world-class collection of woven fiber artifacts from sites across the Northern Great Basin, including the famous 10,000-year-old sandals from Fort Rock Cave,” said the museum's archaeological research director, Tom Connolly. “The items from this collection reveal Oregon’s deep history of weaving traditions and point to its ongoing life within Native American communities today.”

“Tribes from across Oregon contributed images, stories and contemporary items to the exhibit,” said Ann Craig, the museum’s exhibitions director. “From the poetry of Oregon Poet Laureate Elizabeth Woody (Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs) to a handcrafted canoe paddle by Shirod Younker (Coquille), the items demonstrate a continuity of technology and practice over thousands of years.”

Visitors to the exhibit will be encouraged to add their voices to Oregon’s collective story. Part of the redesigned space is devoted to a visitor-created display where participants can share their personal perspectives on community, history and life in Oregon. The first two Oregonians to add their stories to the display will be mayor-elect Lucy Vinis and Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota.

“We hope to collect thousands more over the next year,” Craig said.  

The $500,000 redesign project was made possible through a combination of public and grant funding as well as major gifts from the Pederson Family Trust, the Donald and Coeta Barker Foundation, the museum's Friends and Sandal Society, the Soderwall Endowment, and numerous anonymous donors. Democratic state Rep. Nancy Nathanson, the Oregon Legislature and the Oregon Cultural Trust were also instrumental in making the project a reality, as were the museum’s exhibit design partners at The Alchemy of Design and the architectural team at Robertson-Sherwood and Associates.

—By Kristin Strommer, Museum of Natural and Cultural History