Glossary

**Taphonomy** is the study of the processes by which organic remains pass from the biosphere into the lithosphere, encompassing all biological, chemical, and physical agents that preserve or destroy organic materials and affect information in the fossil record. The discipline was established in 1940 by Soviet paleontologist Ivan Efremov, who defined it as 'the study of the transition, in all its details, of animal remains from the biosphere into the lithosphere.' In 1985, Behrensmeyer and Kidwell broadened this definition to include all types of organic remains and traces—not only animal hard parts but also plants, microbes, biomolecules, trackways, and coprolites—and to recognize that both preservation and destruction of remains are legitimate objects of study. Taphonomy operates through three sequential but overlapping stages: necrology (early post-mortem decomposition and scavenging), biostratinomy (transport and burial), and diagenesis (post-burial chemical and physical alteration, including mineralization). Because these processes act as successive filters on biological information, taphonomic analysis is essential for identifying and correcting the preservation biases inherent in the fossil record—biases relating to body composition, habitat, organism size, and the time-averaging of assemblages. Beyond paleontology, taphonomy has become a profoundly interdisciplinary science with applications in archaeology, forensic anthropology, conservation paleobiology, ecology, and astrobiology, providing critical methodological frameworks for interpreting dead remains across all these fields.