Ur- und Ortsgeschichte

Ice Age Hall

The fossils of animals that lived in the Bottrop area during the Ice Age are exhibited in the Ice Age Hall. This was around 115,000-38,000 years ago.

The highlight of the exhibition is the huge skeleton of a mammoth bull, the most famous animal of the Ice Age.

A unique exhibit is the cast of a seven meter wide and four meter high trackway slab. It preserves the tracks left by a lion, a wolf and other hoofed animals on the soft mud of Bottrop around 38,000 years ago.

The exhibition also shows other fossil remains of various large and small Ice Age animals as well as the first evidence of human activity in Bottrop from this period.

Most of these finds came to light in the 1960s and 1970s. When the Rhine-Herne Canal was dredged, founding director Arno Heinrich selected the objects taken from the earth for the collection.

Villa

On the first floor of the exhibition, we explore the history of the formation of coal 300 million years ago as well as modern industrial history.

One exhibition room displays some of the largest ammonites in the world. These include the ancient relatives of cuttlefish and octopuses. In the heyday of the dinosaurs, around 80 million years ago, a large part of Europe was under water. This is why we still find fossils of sea urchins, oysters and crabs today. This sea was also inhabited by predators such as sharks and marine dinosaurs. For example, short-necked mosasaurs and long-necked plesiosaurs swam in the water.

On the first floor, we can also see the skeleton of a manatee that lived in the region around 30 million years ago. Animals and plants that are still alive today are also on display.

On the second floor of the villa, we gain an insight into the Neolithic and Bronze Age history of Bottrop. The exhibition continues with historical objects from religious and secular life from the 15th century onwards. Finally, objects shed light on important facets of life in Bottrop during the 20th and 21st centuries.