Ancient Worlds
Hiding in Plain Sight

Dive in as the Ordovician Period shimmers to life through fossils and new technology.

The Cincinnati region’s deep time past is all around us! From tropical oceans teeming with invertebrate life to the first forests with 100-foot-tall trees, fossil evidence enables us to travel back in time to study and explore these ancient Paleozoic ecosystems over 450 million years ago.

Built on the strength of our world-renowned fossil collection, travel through over 150 million years of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky’s incredible geologic past. In this immersive new gallery, explore ancient environments and the animals and plants that lived here so long ago. Discover how fossils are formed and investigate the connections between extinct and modern species. See how processes such as evolution, extinction and climate change impacted these communities, and how this understanding can inform the major issues facing us today. Become an amateur paleontologist and get prepared to step into the time machine that is Ancient Worlds!