Abstract
Calls to decolonize the museum have surged alongside public awareness of institutional
violence. To incite change, museum visitors are becoming involved in decolonizing efforts in the
museum. In this paper, I examine displays of prehistoric figurines, and demonstrate how they
serve colonial perceptions of so-called “primitive” people and prehistory as artifacts of the past.
By engaging as a Critical Museum Visitor— as described by Margaret Lindauer—I analyze and
critique my visits of five American museums in January of 2023: the Art Institute of Chicago,
the Field Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the
American Museum of Natural History. From these visits, I demonstrate how the colonial mindset
is present in unwritten and written messages in the museum and propose potential actionable
solutions. While acknowledging the challenges museum face in decolonizing their institutions, I
highlight examples wherein prehistoric figurines have been weaponized to perpetuate colonial
violence and the conflation of prehistoric and nonwestern people, through the museum’s spatial,
visual, and written messages. Combining evidence from my visits with colonial texts from the
19th and 20th century, I argue that the museum continues to subjugate “Othered” cultures through
its display and interpretation of prehistoric figurines and other objects.