An Interview with Paleoartist Tyler Keillor

One of the most exquisite discoveries from Gobero is a triple burial which preserved an adult woman interred with two young children. The bodies were buried with their arms around each other and were holding hands. Paul Sereno's vision was to create something unique that would enable people to 1) view the burial from both sides and 2) preserve all of the scientific information in place: from the tiniest bones to the original position of the artifacts. He met with his staff at the University of Chicago Fossil Lab to make a plan. Paleoartist Tyler Keillor brought a “paleo-trifecta” of art, science and innovation to bear in order to helpreconstruct this ancient scene.

Tyler grew up in the suburbs west of Chicago in Brookfield and LaGrange with his older sister, Aimee. As kids they loved to go into nearby woods to look under logs and stones for toads, garter snakes, whatever they could find. When Tyler wasn’t visiting places like the Brookfield Zoo, Chicago’s Field Museum or nature centers like the Little Red Schoolhouse, he was developing his artistic tendencies: drawing and working with modeling clay.

Since 2001 Tyler has worked as a fossil preparator and paleoartist reconstructing fossils in Dr. Paul Sereno’s Fossil Lab at the University of Chicago. In the Fossil Lab, Tyler’s lifelong fascination with nature and science merges with artistic skills developed in his former career (creating special effects and makeup for film, TV, and theater).

Under Tyler’s hands an array of creatures have come back to life as skeletal and flesh reconstructions. Tyler has worked to reconstruct, among other toothy-faces, SuperCroc, Rugops, Tiktaalik, and, most recently, the skeletal and flesh head and neck of Nigersaurus. However, it wasn’t until archaeological material came to the lab that Tyler had the opportunity to reconstruct fossil material of a more familiar species: humans. Tyler currently lives in Brookfield, Illinois, with his wife, Kari.

Tyler was interviewed in August 2008 by Gabrielle Lyon for the Project Exploration website.

Q: How did you first get involved with working on fossil preparation and reconstruction?
A: I worked at the Field Museum in the exhibition department in 1999 and 2000. While there, I had to make some repairs to the Apatasaurus, Lambeosaurus, and other fossil specimens on display that had become damaged by visitors. It was my first encounter with dinosaurs and fossils (beyond what I bought in souvenir shops as a kid), and it was really exciting. I heard that Paul Sereno was coming back into town with several tons of fossils from the 2000 African expedition, and I thought he might be able to use someone with my talents and interests on his team. Paul gave me a chance, and I learned the intricacies of fossil preparation "on the job" from chief preparator Bob Masek. My art background and previous work experience helped me to pick up techniques quickly. In 2001 I helped reconstruct some of the missing skull parts of "SuperCroc,” and that was the tip of the iceberg.

Q: How did you get involved in this project?
A: We received a shipment of jackets from the Gobero expedition, and Paul met with us to discuss the priorities, and which specimens we would focus the most work on. The "Triple Burial" was from the outset one of the most spectacular and exciting finds that came back to the lab. Bob and I began the delicate fossil preparation process, but didn't realize at the time the extent of work that would go into creating a display out of the discovery.

Q: Did you do anything in particular to prepare for this project?
A: Working on humans was a new experience, because we usually work with dinosaurs! But because of the quantity of specimens from the Gobero site, we ended up working on so many humans that it didn't seem unusual after a while. As we went along, we would familiarize ourselves with human osteology from books, research casts, etc.

Q: Was reconstructing human skeletons different for you from reconstructing other kinds of fossils? If so, how?
A: Luckily, human skeletons have been well studied and documented by researchers. Study-casts of human bones are widely available, and there are many books with photos and illustrations of human bones. So, when we were preparing a fossil, we could check this wealth of reference material to help identify bones we were encountering, and predict which bones we might next reveal. If a specimen had been partially weathered away, we could confidently reconstruct the appearance of the missing anatomy. By contrast, when we work on dinosaurs, especially all the new species we have in the lab, there aren't books or references to turn to for guidance as to what to expect, because nobody has seen these new creatures yet!

Q: Can you describe the process involved in reconstructing the triple burial?
A: Preparation of the triple burial involved cleaning the bones and planning how to put them back into the orientation in which they were buried.

A large section of the adult skeleton, from the skull down to the knees, had bones connected by hardened sand. Another large section encompassed both of the children's skulls and torsos in hardened sand. Most of the leg bones were collected individually, and we had reassembled them the way they were articulated in the field.

After all the bones were clean and stabilized, I made silicone rubber molds of the parts. These were “two-part molds,” which captured the front and back of the skeletons. Next, I cast a plastic resin into these molds to reproduce the specimens in perfect detail. Then I had to re-connect all the bones, and make a display of the burial site.

I built a large sandbox on the floor and set the cast skeleton parts into the sand. This let me recreate the precise pose of the burial. I built a metal frame to go around the skeletons, forming a border for the display. Then, using more plastic resin, I connected all the skeletal parts by carefully drizzling the resin between the bones and over the metal frame—but not over the bones themselves.

After several coats of plastic resin, I sprinkled a layer of sand onto a final coating of plastic while it was still sticky. When this had “cured” (dried), I was able to lift the re-assembled skeletal burial out of the sandbox; I had created a plaque that reconstructs the actual burial site. Final work included painting the plastic replica bones to match the coloration of the original fossils.

Q: What were your goals for the reconstruction? What were some of the biggest challenges?
A: The great thing about this project, as with so many of the challenges we face at the lab, is that we used materials and techniques totally new to us. The triple burial plaque is essentially a 5-foot-tall, 4-foot-wide, extremely thin sculpture that was a combination of molded and cast elements blended with freehand sculptural use of liquid resin and sand. We used a resin recommended by a chemical manufacturer, Smooth-On; we had never used that particular product before, and it worked out great.

Another interesting aspect of the triple plaque is that Paul wanted the margin of sand around the burial to be large enough so that someone viewing the exhibit would be able to take a photo of the skeletons in the sand without getting anything extraneous from the background in the shot. So I partnered with Erin Fitzgerald, a woman who also works in the lab, and got advice from Mike Hettwer, a photographer, to figure out the photographic aspect ratio and covert it to a measurement that would allow an appropriately-sized border of sand around the skeletons in the burial.

It was one challenge after another!

Q: What has been your favorite part of working on the material from the Gobero site?
A: While it was extremely labor intensive, and at times a bit overwhelming, I can now look at the triple plaque in its finished form and say that was my favorite accomplishment out of the material from the Gobero site. The best part for me is when we can step back and take inventory of all these beautifully prepared skulls, skeletons, fauna, tools, etc., and see them in the context of the research that has come out of this work.

Q: If you could transport back in time and see Gobero as it was when people were living there, what questions would you most like to learn the answers to?
A: I would really like to learn how these people learned to survive in their unique environment. While it was a much more hospitable place for them than it is now, I still wonder if they had an easy life, or if they struggled for daily survival.

Q: Now that the triple burial reconstruction is finished, what's next?
A: Next, we have a variety of dinosaurs, crocs, and other interesting creatures that will require preparation, reconstructions, and another interview to discuss the newest discovery to be unveiled! Stay tuned, there's a lot more news to come out of the lab soon!

WANT TO SEE MORE OF TYLER’S WORK?

• Watch a movie about how Tyler built the model of the limbed fish Tiktaalik.
  
• Read “Modeler brings bones back to life.”
  
• See how Tyler reconstructed India’s first dinosaur, Rajasaurus.
  
• Read a profile of Tyler in the SUN TIMES column, “What’s my line?”