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Permanent exhibitions at the Western Center highlight the discoveries at the Diamond Valley Lake site that range in age from 230,000 years ago to the present.
Nearly one million paleontological specimens and archaeological artifacts found at more than 337 prehistoric sites form the core of the collection. A sampling of these are on exhibition in the permanent galleries.
Your experience at the Museum includes . . .
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The Life on Earth Timeline 
Walk along the 156 foot open-air corridor from the parking lot to the museum lobby entrance. The overhead time rings guide you through the geologic time periods.
Begin with the Pre-Cambrian and travel to the Holocene, the time period in which our mammoths and mastodons lived. The distance you walk from ring to ring is directly proportional to the amount of time that passed from one geologic period to the next.
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The Big Dam Hole
Use the interactives to learn about the people and animals that inhabited the Diamond Valley Lake site over time. Discover how scientists uncovered evidence of their existence.
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Postcards from the Past
Learn about a typical 1880s house in the Diamond Valley region.
Travel farther back in time with the artifacts created and used by the earlier Native American residents.
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Movies in the Theater
 Two short films are shown regularly in our circular, immersion theater with its 270-degree screen.
Enjoy the animated Echoes of the Past, which transports viewers to a time when giant creatures roamed the area. The informative, ten-minute documentary, Discovery and Recovery provides an eyewitness view of the excavation at Diamond Valley Lake.
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 Snapshots in Time
Be amazed by the size of mammoths and mastodons that used to live in the Diamond Valley Lake area. See the real fossils of some very large animals:
• A 10ft tall mastodon, nicknamed Max
• A 12ft. tall mammoth, nicknamed Xena,
• And a giant ground sloth nearly 7ft. tall.
Use the magnifying glass to see fossils from some very small critters including birds and lizards.
Walk over a re-created quarry site that holds the remains of "Little Stevie", a mastodon that lived nearly 50,000 years ago.
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Discovery Lab
Follow the trail of these animals from their discovery in the field to curation and research in the museum.
Explore discovery sites and the "Tools of the Trade" that archaeologists use in the field.
Understand techniques used to date fossils and artifacts by using an interactive "Dating Game."
Learn why "Not Everyone Gets to Be a Fossil" and make your own fossil cast using air-dry clay and one of our molds.
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Big Picture
View life in the Diamond and Domenigoni Valleys from present day to thousands of years ago on a larger-than-life simulated film projector.
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