"That is one reason that the Natural History Museum of Utah, which opened last fall in a new $102 million, 17-acre home in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountain Range, has such a powerful impact. Here, at Salt Lake City’s edge, above the geological shoreline of the ancient Lake Bonneville, the earth is vividly present: seen in nearby snow-covered mountains, in the winding hiking and biking path that runs past the museum, and in the untouched land above. Most natural history museums are in urban centers, offering reminders of a distant natural world, but this one is housed in the realm it surveys; it is at home.

This also means that the institution touches on one of the most politically fraught aspects of the natural history museum’s heritage. Traditionally, many of these institutions have been repositories for American Indian collections and artifacts of other ancient cultures, which were thought to belong because these peoples were considered closer to the natural world. Now such collections are as central to the natural history museum as are holdings of minerals or fossils.

The approach here is to take this association for granted and then tell an archaeological and anthropological story. The result is an illuminating show called “First Peoples.” We see examples of twine from before 4000 B.C.; corn on the cob from A.D. 900-1275; and moccasins from the 13th century. A coiled basket, preserved in the dry darkness of one of Utah’s desert caves, is dated 7000 B.C."

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History Carved Out of the Hills (The New York Times 3/24)