Many times a museum takes representations of actual artifacts and places them in a larger historical context. For example, in a museum with skeletons of large pre-historic animals, often times the bones are actually made of plaster. They construct them together in order to give the viewer an idea of what this animal may have looked like. In my home-town of North Bend, there is a local museum with many artifacts from its past. Among these artifacts are constructions that depict what pioneer life may have looked like. There are dummies dressed in clothes from the time among items constructed to look like they would a hundred years ago. This is an example of how a museum may present information and historical facts without using artifacts from the time period. It will still make similar points it set out to make, it just doesn't do it in the traditional way that many expect a museum to.
