Cleveland Museum of Natural History

The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum in University Circle, a district of educational, cultural and medical institutions approximately five miles (8 km) east of Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The museum was established in 1920 by Cyrus S. Eaton to perform research, education and development of collections in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, botany, geology, paleontology, wildlife biology, and zoology. The museum traces its roots to the Ark, formed in 1836 on Cleveland's Public Square by William Case, the Academy of Natural Science formed by William Case and Jared Potter Kirtland, and the Kirtland Society of Natural History, founded in 1869 and reinvigorated in 1922 by the trustees of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Donald Johanson was the Museum's Curator of Physical Anthropology when he discovered "Lucy," the skeletal remains of the ancient hominid Australopithecus afarensis. The current curators of the Anthropological Sciences department include Nicole Burt, Ph.D.

Curator of Human Health & Evolutionary Medicine; Emma Finestone, Associate Curator and the Robert J. and Linnet E. Fritz Endowed Chair of Human Origins; and Elizabeth (Ebeth) Sawchuk, Associate Curator of Human Evolution.