Take a look through the ages
Step back 360 million years – a time when the seas teamed with ichthyosaurs, mammoths roamed the earth and crocodiles lurked in murky waters. The walrus wallowed on sandy beaches, hyenas hunted in forests and crinoids clung to coral in the oceans.
These are the worlds created in the latest exhibition Ancient Seas of the Yorkshire Coast: A story through time from Whitby to Flamborough Head at the Rotunda Musem in Scarborough.
It showcases the fossils in the collections kept by Scarborough Museums Trust. The exhibition also means that each room at both the Rotunda and Scarborough Art Gallery in The Crescent are all now open and used for displays.
“This exhibition is a chance for us to highlight Yorkshire’s key part in Britain’s prehistoric past and show the changing landscape of the Dinosaur Coast,” said Julie Baxter, venues and volunteer manager at ‘It’s a great opportunity for us to share with our visitors all the fascinating pieces in our collection’ the Trust. It’s also a great opportunity for us to share with our visitors all the fascinating pieces in our collection,” she said. The room it is housed in is appropriate as it looks out over Scarborough South Bay, the harbour and towards Cayton and Filey.
Among the fossils on show are ammonites, sponges, plants, crinoids – akin to sea urchins and which still exist today – star fish, mammoth and hyena teeth, crocodile skulls – one on loan from Whitby Museum – a turtle shell and an ichthyosaur vertebrae.
There is what is known as a ‘deathbed’ in Hackness rock – appropriate because the Rotunda is built from the same rock and the its first patron was owner of the Hackness Estate SirJohn Johnson.
The show-stopper is a walrus skull, dating back to the last Ice Age, was discovered in situ and was uncovered within the cliffs at Haven’s Reighton Sands beach, between Filey and Scarborough. The walrus originates from Doggerland – an area of landmass which once connected the UK to mainland Europe, stretching between Scotland and the Netherlands.
Forming part of the exhibition –which takes visitors from the Carboniferous period, through the Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous and Holiscene – are a series of maps which show where Britain was in relation to the rest of the world. It gives people an idea that we have not always been an island,” said collections manager Jennifer
Dunne. “We wanted to tell the story of how the landscape has changed and what type of animals would be living in the seas around at the time.
“The exhibition is a whistle-stop tour of 360 million years and gives people an idea of the geological time scale and how as humans we are a blip in that time scale.”
There is also space left for the next period. Scientists are debating whether we have left the Holiscene and entered the Anthropomorphous period.
A mural – which covers the back wall – was also commissioned from palaeontological artist Mark Witton and a model of an ichthyosaurus hangs from the ceiling.Each member of the team were given aspects of the exhibition: Julie spearheaded the project, Jennifer was in charge of graphics, Nigel Hogg was the logistics guru and Jim Middleton was in charge of obects.