palaetiology
pa·lae·tio·logy
noun
1.
the explanation of past events in terms of scientific causes (as geological causes)
Origin
From palaeo- + aetiology. Coined by William Whewell.
Related words
Broader terms
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.