Paleontology

Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life on Earth, especially through fossils, and is an important tool for studying organisms' evolution. A traveller can find museums and dig sites which tell the story of our planet before recorded history, before mankind, before land animals, even before vertebrates.

The oldest fossils go back over 600 million years. Among the most interesting are:

the dinosaurs (reptiles of the Mezozoic Era, 245 to 66 million years ago)
other great beasts such as mammoths and sabertooth tigers

(mammals of the Pliocene epoch, about 5 million years ago, to the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago)

the various extinct human or proto-human species (around 3.5 million to 40,000 years ago)

see early explorers for some of their migrations

Of course there are many other epochs, each with different fossils.

For the history of modern humans, Homo sapiens, during the last 50,000 years, see Archaeological sites and Historical travel.

Some travellers also dig up fossils themselves; see Rockhounds.

Understand

Fossils are most often formed when some creature is buried in mud or silt which later turns into sedimentary rock, most often shale or limestone. Most fossil beds are on the sites of ancient bodies of water — rivers, lakes, marshes or seas.

There are both animal and plant fossils. Animals' bones and other durable parts like scales or feathers are often turned to rock, but generally something a bit different from the surrounding rock so the fossil can be recognized. Sometimes the bones can be separated from the surrounding rock; this is how the museums get skeletons. Some plants become petrified wood, and coal may preserve traces of the plants it is formed from.

Creatures may also be preserved in other ways, caught in amber or tar, or frozen like some mammoths found in Siberia.

Not all paleontology involves fossils. In particular, while some sites for ancient humans or proto-humans may have fossils others have unfossilized bones, and in any case the tools and other artifacts are at least as interesting as the human remains.

Museums

Too many museums to mention have paleontological exhibits. Here is a selection of museums with collections beyond the usual.

Museums routinely trade exhibits. A European museum might have Neanderthal material, a North American one dinosaurs, and an Australian one some of that region's unique megafauna. After some trades, all three museums might have exhibits in all three categories.

Fine specimens are also sometimes sold at auction, the better ones at prices where only museums, millionaires and large companies can afford to bid. For example, Google have a fine example of Tyrannosaurus rex on their headquarters campus.

Americas

American Museum of Natural History, 40.780556°, -73.974722°.
Field Museum of Natural History, 41.866111°, -87.616944°. Museum with a wide array of displays on the flora and fauna of different eras, as well as some archaeological exhibits. Best known for being the home of Sue, the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton yet discovered. T. rex was the last and largest of the tyrannosaurs, about 68 to 66 million years ago. 2016-12-06
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 34.016989°, -118.288781°. The largest natural history museum in the western US.
National Museum of Brazil (Museu Nacional), -22.905833°, -43.226111°. This museum has seven departments, one of which is paleontology. It sadly burnt down in September 2018 and is being slowly reconstructed.
National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution), 38.8913°, -77.0259°. This museum has the world's largest natural history collection, and the largest team of scientists working on natural history. It is the second most visited such museum on Earth, after the one in London. free
Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, Highway 838, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada, 51.47942°, -112.78905°. A spectacular range of exhibits showing off the rich fossils of the Alberta badlands, from dinosaurs to pollen. It also has some exhibits that were found elsewhere, including a "dinosaur mummy", a fossilized nodosaur with its skin and armour intact.
Plenty to see and do. Hundreds of thousands of visitors per year. There are a variety of moderate hikes to fossil artifacts, starting from the museum during the summer.
Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Annex district, Toronto, 43.667572°, -79.394683°. Canada's largest museum. It has sponsored many digs all over Canada and has a fine collection of fossils, in particular many dinosaurs and probably the world's best collection of the strange creatures of the #Burgess Shale.
Wyoming Dinosaur Center. A museum with many skeletons, and a dig site.

Asia

National Science Museum (国立科学博物館 Kokuritsu kagaku hakubutsukan), Tokyo/Ueno, Japan, 35.716387°, 139.776247°. A prominent collection of dinosaur fossils.
Shandong Tianyu Natural History Museum (山东省天宇自然博物馆), 35.5198°, 117.6087°. Enormous museum of natural history built by a local billionaire to house his enormous personal collection of fossils and minerals. The museum holds the Guinness World Record for largest dinosaur museum in the world and there are numerous Guinness World Record awarded items inside, usually for being the largest.
Zigong Dinosaur Museum (自贡恐龙博物馆). Located on top of the Dashanpu Formation, China's most famous dinosaur fossil site, where hundreds of dinosaur fossils have been found since the 1970s. The museum was the first museum in China to be devoted exclusively to dinosaurs. Besides the usual displays, one can also view an excavation pit where fossils have been unearthed.

Europe

Natural History Museum, 51.495983°, -0.176372°. Palaeontology is one of five major sections of this famous museum, and is home to thousands of extinct specimens, large and small. Unlike most other museums of its size and genre, this one is completely free to enter. 2016-12-06
Neanderthal Museum, 51.226769°, 6.951068°. A museum dedicated to the Neanderthal Man, Homo neanderthalensis, who populated much of Europe and the Middle East until they were displaced by Homo sapiens and went extinct around 40,000 BCE. Modern humans, especially those with East Asian or European ancestry, have some Neanderthal DNA. 2016-12-06

Oceania

National Dinosaur Museum, Canberra, Australia, -35.1943°, 149.088°. This museum has the largest collection of dinosaur and prehistoric fossil material in Australia, specialising in Australian megafauna. 2016-03-15
Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia. Has a fine exhibit on early man, including species like Homo heidelbergensis that did not reach Australia.

Sites

Africa

Olduvai Gorge, -2.99614°, 35.3523°. This site has some of the oldest proto-human fossils and tools. There is a museum.
Cradle of Humankind, -25.96716°, 27.66245°. A with many caves, some of which can be visited, and a museum.

Americas

The region just east of the Rocky Mountains has many of the world's finest dinosaur sites, on both sides of the US/Canada border, and both countries also have other fossil sites.

USA

La Brea Tar Pits, 5801 Wilshire Blvd (Los Angeles, California (in the Wilshire area)), 34.063788°, -118.357622°. An area in the middle of L.A. with Ice Age beasts preserved in tar. Has a large museum.
Dinosaur National Monument, 40.533°, -108.9833°. In addition to many fossils, the area has Native American petroglyphs, some up to 10,000 years old.
Fossil Butte National Monument, 41.8644°, -110.775833°. This was a subtropical lake bed about 50 million years ago. The fossils include fish, alligators, bats, turtles, dog-sized horses, insects, and many other species of plants and animals.
Potomac Highlands, 38.896389°, -78.913056°. This is one of the few areas where visitors are allowed to collect fossils. The fossils are marine creatures from the Devonian period (the "Age of Fishes", roughly 420 to 360 million years ago), before the dinosaurs.

Canada

Europe

Asia

Australia

Do

In some places you can actually "fossil hunt" yourself, but this may be subject to a number of local regulations, as well as import/export restrictions when crossing borders. In some cases what you find in terms of "fossils" is so commonplace that no protection need to be enforced, but it is a great way to spend a day with children (especially the "dinosaur crowd") as well as to introduce amateur paleontologists to the subject. Some museums that sit in appropriate geological contexts even offer fossil hunting as a part of their program and you should certainly take advantage of that if possible. One of the eras that is rather "packed" with common - though pretty - fossils is limestone from the Jurassic era as it can be found in Franconian Switzerland and the English Jurassic Coast.

If you want to look for rare or valuable fossils, you would most likely have to connect with a university or science-institute who do more sophisticated digs and actually find fossils that haven't been found or at least not been scientifically described before. In many cases those digs are only open to people with legitimate science degrees in the appropriate field(s) or studying towards one. In case you need to cross borders for such, a tourist visa may sometimes not be the category to apply for in those cases.

Understand

Museums

Americas

Asia

Europe

Oceania

Sites

Africa

Americas

USA

Canada

Europe

Asia

Australia

Do

See also