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What Natural History Objects Represent Your State? You Can Find Out in This New Exhibition of More Than 600 Specimens and Artifacts
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What Natural History Objects Represent Your State? You Can Find Out in This New Exhibition of More Than 600 Specimens and Artifacts

Smithsonian · Jun 18, 2026, 2:15 PM

Key takeaways

  • In the stunning collection are a Menominee dugout canoe from Wisconsin, megalodon teeth from North Carolina, a walrus-tusk carving from Alaska and twinned gold crystals from Nevada.
  • The objects are among an assortment of more than 600 featured in the museum’s new exhibition, “From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage,” open now through 2029.
  • “Natural history is everything,” says Torben Rick, an archaeologist at the museum and a co-curator of the exhibition. “It’s the rocks that are around you.

In the stunning collection are a Menominee dugout canoe from Wisconsin, megalodon teeth from North Carolina, a walrus-tusk carving from Alaska and twinned gold crystals from Nevada.

The objects are among an assortment of more than 600 featured in the museum’s new exhibition, “From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage,” open now through 2029. The exhibition, along with its complementary book of the same name, showcases the intersections of natural and cultural history in the United States, through the lens of the museum’s immense collections.

“Natural history is everything,” says Torben Rick, an archaeologist at the museum and a co-curator of the exhibition. “It’s the rocks that are around you. It’s the trees that grow now or grew in the past. Fishes that swim in the lakes, rivers, streams and oceans. It’s us. It’s who we are and all the various, different things that we do and the ways we interact with our environment.”

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