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The simplest definition of "paleontology" is "the study of ancient life". [7] The field seeks information about several aspects of past organisms: "their identity and origin, their environment and evolution, and what they can tell us about the Earth's organic and inorganic past".
The history of paleontology traces the history of the effort to understand the history of life on Earth by studying the fossil record left behind by living organisms. Since it is concerned with understanding living organisms of the past, paleontology can be considered to be a field of biology, but its historical development has been closely tied to geology and the effort to understand the ...
Fossil collecting, as practiced by amateurs, is the predecessor of modern paleontology and many still collect fossils and study fossils as amateurs. Professionals and amateurs alike collect fossils for their scientific value. A commercial trade in fossils has also long existed, with some of this being practised illegally.
Palaeontology: the classification and taxonomy of fossils within the geological record and the construction of a palaeontological history of the Earth. Pedology: the study of soil, soil formation, and regolith formation. Petroleum geology: the study of sedimentary basins applied to the search for hydrocarbons (oil exploration).
Various studies have analyzed the isotopic ratios of sulfur in mummified hair. [95] [96] [97] Hair is a good candidate for sulfur studies as it typically contains at least 5% elemental sulfur. [92] One study incorporated sulfur isotope ratios into their paleodietary investigation of four mummified child victims of Incan sacrificial practices.
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is called a naturalist or natural historian. Natural history encompasses scientific research but is not ...
Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship lines within the family Hominidae, working from biological evidence (such as petrified skeletal remains, bone fragments, footprints) and cultural ...
The discipline that studies the formation of fossil sites is the part of paleontology called taphonomy. [ 1 ] The term paleontological site is somewhat ambiguous and its use is more practical than scientific, so it can refer to localities in which several fossiliferous layers of different ages appear, whose study must be faced by clearly ...