Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1854.
Expeditions, field work, and fossil discoveries
Institutions and organizations
Natural history museums
Scientific organizations
Scientific advances
Paleoanthropology
Paleobotany
Evolutionary biology
Exopaleontology
Extinction research
Micropaleontology
Invertebrate paleozoology
Trace fossils
Vertebrate paleozoology
Research techniques
Fossil trade
Law and politics
Regulation of fossil collection, transport, or sale
Fossil-related crime
Official symbols
Protected areas
Ethics and practice
Hoaxes
Scandals
Unethical practice
People
Births
Awards and recognition
Deaths
Historiography and anthropology of paleontology
Pseudoscience
Popular culture
Amusement parks and attractions
Art
Comics
Film
Gaming
Literature
The Fossil Spirit: A Boy's Dream of Geology by John Mill was published. The story features a fakir from Hindostan telling a group of boys about his past lives as prehistoric creatures across geologic time. One such life as was lived as an Iguanodon who was attacked by a Megalosaurus. Apart from this fight scene, paleontologist William A. S. Sarjeant has dismissed the book as a "singularly turgid and heavily didactic text."