Life on Earth has not always resembled the world we know today. Compared with the millions of years of Earth’s history and the many species that have inhabited it, human society is very young. Palaeontology is the science that investigates past life.

Looking at our surroundings, it can be difficult to imagine that familiar places were entirely different hundreds of millions of years ago, or did not yet exist. Although time travel is unavailable, we can investigate the world before humans through palaeontology.

What is palaeontology? It is the scientific study of life on Earth through geological time. Scientists who study this field are called palaeontologists.

To reconstruct life during different periods of Earth’s history, palaeontologists study fossils, the preserved remains or biological traces of organisms, generally more than 10,000 years old.

Fossils occur in several forms. Familiar examples include the remains of plants and animals that lived tens of thousands or millions of years ago.

Palaeontologists study fossils to understand past life and the evolutionary history that led to humans. Specialists investigate different groups of organisms: some study fossil plants, others fossil mammals or dinosaurs.

Palaeontology combines geology, the study of Earth and its rocks, with biology, the study of life. It also draws on many other disciplines to investigate the plants and animals that inhabited ancient environments.

Palaeontology is classified as a historical sciencebecause it tests hypotheses about past life using evidence obtained from fossils. Preserved plant and animal remains reveal their appearance, diet, way of life, extinction and relationships to later organisms.

Palaeontology helps us understand ancient life, the evolutionary origins of humans and the development of the living world we know today.