This chapter discusses taphonomy and paleoecology. It is always refreshing and sometimes informative to look at the same thing from a different point of view. Paleontologists and archaeologists look at the same thing from different points of view, and a comparison of the ways in which practitioners of these two disciplines go about their work can clarify the unique features and common problems of each. Taphonomy is a word coined by the Russian paleontologist I. A. Efremov from the Greek words for tomb or burial—taphos—and for law or systems of laws—nomos—to denote that subdiscipline of paleontology devoted to the study of processes that operate on organic remains after death to form fossil deposits. In common with many other branches of historical science, taphonomy involves two distinct but necessarily related lines of investigation. The first is devoted to studying observable contemporary processes involved in this transition of organic remains from biosphere to lithosphere, focusing on those that produce effects analogous to those traces observed in the fossil evidence. The second is devoted to analysis of the prehistoric evidence in light of findings derived from the first line of investigation. Properly pursued, taphonomy can provide paleoecologists with information about the spatial, temporal, and biological factors involved in the formation of fossil assemblages.