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The man – An eternal Migrant

You’re a Migrant or not? With this question in the Neanderthal Museum near Düsseldorf, Germany attracts its visitors in the special exhibition “2 million years of Migration”. Archaeological findings show: We are all migrants!



A filament curtain at the beginning of the special exhibition “2 million years of Migration”. The faced the Museum’s visitors with the question: Am I a Migrant or Non-Migrant? Everyone can choose what applies to him and through the curtain into the Shop.

For me, the answer is clear: in 2014, I came to Bonn to Study. For the time of my master studies, I will definitely stay in Germany. Here I am, clearly a Migrant, even if my home country is Luxembourg, and only a stone’s throw away.

A primitive man of physical phenomenon

No matter which category one assigns to the special exhibition offers some Aha-moments and tried to make it clear: We are all migrants! “Our goal is to show that Migration is a very human phenomenon, the million years back,” says Gerd-Christian Less, Director of the Neanderthal Museum .

Director of the Neanderthal Museum Prof. Dr. Gerd-Christian Less

With the special exhibition, the collaborative research project “Our Way to Europe went hand in hand”. Here are the universities of Aachen, Cologne and Bonn to investigate since 2009, scientists in cooperation with the Neanderthal Museum the spread of people from Africa to Europe. Where are the people? Where did you go?

A Route that always works, is the the middle East, then today Turkey to Eastern Europe. The Strait of Gibraltar came only much later as a migration bridge to it.

The researchers noticed that the migration have movements of the time striking Similarity with today’s refugee flows. “As we’ve seen the 2015, it was clear: We need to get involved in this political discussion and our position and our knowledge about the Migration of people to contribute,” said Less in the interview -. Even if barriers would be constructed in – Migration, they could not stop.

Migration then and now

The exhibition builds a bridge between glacial and Modern. How is this implemented in the exhibition? Much of the Show deals with the milestones of prehistoric migration events: The person migrated about 100,000 years ago from Africa. Then the farmers and cattle breeders from the middle East to Europe around 7,500 years ago. To advanced the start of the metal-time horse breeder and dealer, finally, from the West Asian steppes to Central Europe.

The migration routes of the time (left) and today (R)

Parallel to the findings on the Migration of our ancestors, the exhibition makers a braid again and again references to the present time. In the Interviews, which were recorded in Videos that tell the migrants and refugees of our days, how and why they came to Germany.

A Change Of Perspective

The exhibition-makers, is aware that there is no direct connection between the immigrants of then and now. The migration reasons have changed. The upright-walking human being, of necessity, followed, for example, his hunting prey, so many to leave their country today because of war and poverty. But: “The development and the Evolution of man are associated with the Migration closely,” says Less. “The mobility of people and the alteration of habitat. In view of these findings, Dating back over two million years, it can say no solution to We to make our borders.'”

Interviews with migrants and refugees provide an insight into today’s migration reasons

The exhibition aims to bring about a change in perspective. The visitors should take a step back, to take a position, the events of the current day to the borders of Europe. The Exhibition in the Neanderthal Museum invites about the origin of their own thinking before you speak about concepts such as “limits”. Or, as a Museum visitor, said: “We are all people.”

The special exhibition “2 million years of Migration” is still up to 5. To see November 2017 in the Neanderthal Museum in Mettmann.

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