Press Room

Your Brain on Art

Immersed in everything

Joella Jean Mahoney is celebrated in an exhibition at Museum of Northern Arizona. Vast Lands, Inner Visions: The Art of Joella Jean Mahoney summarizes the artist’s 66-year career through 14 stunning paintings that showcase her major motifs and series.

A Continuing Confluence of Archaeological Research

Archaeology is still an important research domain at the museum. In 2014, MNA began a cooperative agreement with Glen Canyon National Recreation area to monitor previously-recorded archaeological sites. These are sites known from the Glen Canyon Project as well as from later surveys done during construction of the roads, marinas, and other infrastructure for visitors. MNA’s work has involved boat-based fieldwork to explore the submerged tributary canyons all along the lake and land-based sessions on the upland terraces north of the Wahweap Bay – Lone Rock area and around Halls Crossing

50 States of Preservation: Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, Arizona

Over the last 15 years, with the support of seven National Endowment for the Humanities awards through the Division of Preservation and Access, the MNA has been able to preserve its large holdings of Native American cultural objects, artworks, and archives, which are viewed by 80,000 visitors each year.

Samantha Burton brings a Native voice to the Museum of Northern Arizona

Samantha Burton, bookstore and publication manager at Museum of Northern Arizona, tackles indigenous representation in literature and fair compensation for Native American artisans and artists.

The Natural History of Rock Art

Native Americans made rock images for many reasons. Among the images visible at rock art sites are depictions of animals and sometimes plants, a tradition that began more than 40,000 years ago in the Paleolithic era in Europe and Asia. These images provide scientists with important information about the climate and environment of the time and place the art was made.

Discovery of Lystrosaurus and a scientific revolution

In December of 1967, New Zealand geologists mapping 240-million-year-old Triassic rocks in the desolate interior of Antarctica stumbled upon some fragmentary bones. A few months later they brought the fragments to paleontologist Edwin H. Colbert for identification. He wasn’t ready for this surprise.

Researchers look to the forest ground for native urban turf

One beautiful day in early November, three women walk through the ponderosa pine forest near the Museum of Northern Arizona. Their attention is not on the trees or mountain views, but down on the grasses. They are collecting seeds from black dropseed, a native grass that serves as habitat for native moth larvae, and provides cover and forage for mammals and seed eating birds.

New cabinets for old bones

For decades, dinosaur bones and other fossils were kept in wooden drawers on the Museum of Northern Arizona research campus. Now the paleontology storage is getting an upgrade, the museum equivalent of swapping out an old wooden dresser with sticky drawers for a well-designed walk-in closet.

Herbarium: A look at a new environment

Drawers of corn in many colors and stacks of pungent juniper – the Walter B. McDougall Herbarium is a dried garden holding important knowledge for researchers seeking to understand a changing environment. “Basically you’re documenting biodiversity. That plant at that place at that time.”

Reality bites: Facts about Flagstaff-area mosquitoes

Like all horror films, the scene starts tranquil – a streamside picnic or a softball game near a pond – until disturbed by an eerie sound. This year the buzz of mosquitoes has turned many outdoor Flagstaff events into fear fests, as the bloodsuckers come in for attack in broad daylight.