Palaeontology

Palaeontology or paleontology (/ˌpeɪlɪɒnˈtɒlədʒi/, /ˌpeɪlɪənˈtɒlədʒi/ or /ˌpælɪɒnˈtɒlədʒi/, /ˌpælɪənˈtɒlədʒi/) is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene Epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments (their palaeoecology). Palaeontologist observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuvier's work on comparative anat Palaeontology or paleontology (/ˌpeɪlɪɒnˈtɒlədʒi/, /ˌpeɪlɪənˈtɒlədʒi/ or /ˌpælɪɒnˈtɒlədʒi/, /ˌpælɪənˈtɒlədʒi/) is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene Epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments (their palaeoecology). Palaeontologist observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuvier's work on comparative anatomy, and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term itself originates from Greek παλαιός, palaios, i.e. "old, ancient", ὄν, on (gen. ontos), i.e. "being, creature" and λόγος, logos, i.e. "speech, thought, study".

Palaeontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of anatomically modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a wide range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics and engineering. Use of all these techniques has enabled palaeontologists to discover much of the evolutionary history of life, almost all the way back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, about 3,800 million years ago. As knowledge has increased, palaeontology has developed specialised sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates.

Body fossils and trace fossils are the principal types of evidence about ancient life, and geochemical evidence has helped to decipher the evolution of life before there were organisms large enough to leave body fossils. Estimating the dates of these remains is essential but difficult: sometimes adjacent rock layers allow radiometric dating, which provides absolute dates that are accurate to within 0.5%, but more often palaeontologists have to rely on relative dating by solving the "jigsaw puzzles" of biostratigraphy. Classifying ancient organisms is also difficult, as many do not fit well into the Linnean taxonomy that is commonly used for classifying living organisms, and palaeontologists more often use cladistics to draw up evolutionary "family trees". The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics, which investigates how closely organisms are related by measuring how similar the DNA is in their genomes. Molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. ...more

Palaeontology Books

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us – A Bestselling Book on the Natural History of Mammalian Evolution

Your Inner Fish: a Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

Dinosaurs Rediscovered: The Scientific Revolution in Paleontology (The Rediscovered Series)

Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds

Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World

The Great Dinosaur Debate: New Theories Unlocking the Mystery of the Dinosaurs and Their Extinction

When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time

The Tyrannosaur Chronicles: The Biology of the Tyrant Dinosaurs

The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times

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Lists

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Pérez

Women in Science

363 books — 110 voters

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

Archaeologist/Paleontologist Characters

33 books — 31 voters

The Dinosaur Expert by Margaret McNamara

Oh Say Can You Say Di-no-saur? All About Dinosaurs by Bonnie Worth

The Big Book of Dinosaurs by D.K. Publishing

Great Dinosaur Books for Families (Digital Formats)

96 books — 11 voters

The fossil feud between E. D. Cope and O. C. Marsh by Elizabeth Noble Shor

Dinosaur Bone War by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

Battle of the Dinosaur Bones by Rebecca L. Johnson

Cope vs. Marsh: A History of the Bone Wars

11 books — 2 voters

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte

The Great Dinosaur Debate by Robert T. Bakker

T. Rex and the Crater of Doom by Walter Álvarez

The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs by Gregory S. Paul

The Best Non-fiction Dinosaur Books

144 books — 97 voters

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

Neanderthals and Other Nonhuman Hominids

131 books — 57 voters

Related Genres

Science
Biology
Archaeology
Dinosaurs
Geology

Fossils
Scieñce
Sciençe
Fossil Hunting

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Quotes Tagged “Palaeontology”

“ Why did Dodgson just stand there like that? That's not the way to act around predators. You get caught around lions, you make a lot of noise, wave your hands around, throw things at them. Try to scare them off. You don't just stand there." "He probably read the wrong research paper. There's been a theory going around that tyrannosaurs can only see movement. A guy named Roxton made casts of rex braincases, and concluded tyrannosaurs had the brain of a frog." "Roxton is an idiot. He doesn't know ...more ”
― Michael Crichton, The Lost World

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“ Palaeontology is the Aladdin's lamp of the most deserted and lifeless regions of the earth; it touches the rocks and there spring forth in orderly succession the monarchs of the past and the ancient river streams and savannahs wherein they flourished. The rocks usually hide their story in the most difficult and inaccessible places. ...more ”
― Roy Chapman Andrews, On the Trail to Ancient Man: A Narrative of the Fieldwork of the Central Asiatic Expeditions

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