The German inventor Joseph Gaertner, an 18th-century doctor and botanist, dedicated his life to the study of natural history.
When the discipline is applied to archaeological remains, it is known as paleocarpology, which in turn is located within paleobotanical science.
Carpology pursues two objectives: to reconstruct the evolution of a certain plant species; and to recreate the landscape and, thus, its flora and fauna.
Among other things, carpology can distinguish between indigenous seeds and those that have been domesticated for human cultivation.
France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany are the European states with the longest history of this discipline.