At Paleontology, a quick analysis seems to be simply the study of the lives forms that inhabited our planet in past times. This may be true if we look only to "strict sensu" meaning of the word (Latin:- palaios = old / onto = life / logy = study), that mean's the study of old SERES (MENDES, 1984). But, in the truth, this is one of the many facets that compose the world of the Paleontology. This science doesn't only study the fossils, but also its contained vestiges in the sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks, its implications stratigraphy and geohistory. It is important to observe that, the meaning of the word "fossil" had been suffered many modifications since it's first appearance. This word comes from the latin fossilem, that means, "extracted of the earth". In the beginning, it was used to designate any object or remarkable material removed of the earth or found in its surface, what ever were it's origin. Under this definition, the term included, what we call today fossils, as well as, the minerals and the stones. Aristóteles was the first one to establish, the distinction between fossils and minerals, for him, the first ones were stones that could not melt, in opposition to the minerals, which were fusible. Only at the beginning of the XVIII century, that the fossil term began to be used with the current meaning (BEVIÁ, 1996). The understanding of the nature of the fossils as old life remains and the recognition that they have the same age and the same conditions of formation of the rocks that contains them, were progress that happened only gradually, during the development of the human knowledge.
Fossils; develop of the paleontological thought