Titans of the Ice Age

March 2, 2013 - November 22, 2013

Titans of the Ice Age transports viewers to the beautiful and otherworldly frozen landscapes of North America, Europe and Asia ten thousand years before modern civilization.  Peer through the IMAX lens to an ancient world of ice, the dawn of our species, a time when man shared the tundra with majestic woolly beasts.

Dazzling computer-generated imagery brings this mysterious era to life - from saber-toothed cats and cave bears to dire wolves and woolly mammoths - giants both feared and hunted by prehistoric humans.

The Ice Age marks a dynamic chapter in the development of the human spirit, a great test of survival, a "trial by ice" that would compel our ancestors to seek understanding and meaning in nature.  These inventions and discoveries - art, language, clothing, the taming of fire - born of the Pleistocene, were tools that defined and civilized the human species.

Ironically, our spirit of ingenuity and survival instincts would ultimately provide us with the power and knowledge to alter the very forces of nature that once shaped our existence.  And the consequences, from species devastation to global warming, have become the great challenges in the modern era.  The Ice Age takes a thoughtful look at the relationships between the Earth, her resources and inhabitants, and our role in a changing world.  As the planet now warms by our own hand, jeopardizing thousands of species, how can we tap into the same great human capacity for innovation to solve today's emerging threats?

Titans of the Ice Age IMAX Theater Lobby exhibit

This complimentary IMAX movie related exhibit will feature the museum’s specimens (in vitrines and exhibit cases) and casts (for touching) of late Pleistocene megafauna as found here in the Mid-South.

Since the IMAX film is about the large animals of the Quaternary glaciation – it would be instructive to let people know that while the Mid-South was not under a glacier, it was nevertheless impacted by climate change that caused the Quaternary glaciation…..and the plants and animals in the Mid-South were – in many cases – different from the animals now found in the Mid-South.