Paleo-inspiration is a paradigm shift that leads scientists and designers to draw inspiration from ancient materials (from art, archaeology, natural history or paleo-environments) to develop new systems or processes, particularly with a view to sustainability.
[1] While this type of application has been known for a long time, the concept itself was coined by teams from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Bern University of Applied Sciences from the term Bioinspiration.
[2] Different names have been used to designate the corresponding systems, in particular: paleo-inspired,[2] antiqua-inspired,[1] antiquity-inspired[3] or archaeomimetic.
[4] The use of these different names illustrates the extremely large time gap between the sources of inspiration, from millions of years ago when considering palaeontological systems and fossils, to much more recent archaeological or artistic material systems.
[7] A notable discovery is the elucidation of the atomic structure of Maya blue, a composite pigment combining a clay with an organic dye, which has led teams to produce pigments of other colours by combining clays with distinct organic dyes, such as "Maya violet".