Definition of "paleontologist"

An alternative approach is to break down cultures into ab- stract elements and to establish, between elements of the same type in different cultures, rather than between cultures themselves, the same kind of relationships of historical descent and progressive differentiation which the paleontologist sees in the evolution of species.

1963, Claude Lévy-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, New York: Basic Books, page 4

In the late nineteenth century, paleontologists began to catalog the many curious correspondences exhibited by fossils gathered on different continents.

2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Picador, page 197