The prime interest of paleobotany is to reconstruct the vegetation that people in the past would have encountered in a particular place and time.[2] Plant studies have always been overshadowed by faunal studies because bones are more conspicuous than plant remains when excavating.[2] Collection of plant remains could everything including pollen, soil, diatoms, wood, plant remains and phytoliths. Phytoliths are sediments and diatoms are water deposits. Each plant remain can tell the archaeologist different things about the environment during a certain time period.[3] Animal remains were the first evidence used by 19th century archaeologists.