What do the Fossils Tell Us?
Fossils show us a great deal about earlier life forms. Not only can we learn about evolutionary processes and trends, but we can also reconstruct body shapes. Most prominent animal fossils displayed in museums usually are mineralized bones. From these skeletons, researchers can often learn about gender, physical capabilities, growth patterns, life expectancies, and pathologies. For instance, by studying muscle attachment points on bones, it is usually possible to make inferences about the size and shape of muscles. This can be an important clue to understanding locomotion. The relative size, shape, and position of eyes, nose, and ears on a skull can lead to an understanding of the importance and capabilities of these different senses. Brains are virtually never fossilized, but the brain cases often are. These can give us a good idea of the gross structures of brains and their overall mass. The age at death can be estimated by such things as closure of bone growth plates and skull sutur
