Surviving: The Body of Evidence
About the Exhibition

You are a survivor. Your body holds the evidence. The process of evolution and its outcomes have had a profound impact on every aspect of your daily life. And the process continues.

Penn Museum invites you on a journey of self-discovery, through Surviving: The Body of Evidence, an interactive, multimedia exhibition that starts, and ends, with you.

You’ll start at Fit for Life, an introduction to your inherited human strengths and capabilities.

Then, travel back millions of years to meet ancestors from now- extinct species, as you consider Our Place in the Natural World. Touch and examine more than 100 casts of fossil bones from the primate and human evolutionary record as you move forward, Finding Our Human Ancestors.

Encounter some of the world’s most brilliant scientists and revolutionary thinkers as they put voice to their breakthrough theories in dramatic reenactments, in Witnessing Evolution.

Then, find out more about the particulars—why your back may ache, your son’s wisdom teeth are impacted, or your sister had trouble giving birth. Take stock in the imperfect, but remarkable, human being that you are today, in We are not Perfect, but We are OK.

Genetics, evolutionary biologists, nanotechnology engineers, even school children, share what they think in We Keep Evolving—and invite you to make a prediction about our shared evolutionary future.