No Man's Sky Paleontology Guide

Part of the Exploration & Endgame series:

• Exploration & Endgame Guide Hub: Start here.
• Planet Types, Biomes & Hazards: Where to hunt.

Quick Answer

• Paleontology arrived with the Relics update (version 5.6, March 2025) and turns buried alien remains into a full collect-and-build activity.
• You unlock a dedicated excavation tool early in the activity's introductory questline, and it operates from your multi-tool alongside the Terrain Manipulator and Analysis Visor.
• Dig sites are scattered across planet surfaces and are located by scanning, so the same survey habits that find fauna and flora apply here.
• Excavation is a careful, deliberate process rather than a mining spree. You uncover buried pieces gradually instead of blasting through terrain.
• Recovered fragments are assembled into complete skeletons, which can be placed and displayed as large base decorations.
• Payoff comes in three forms: units from surplus and duplicate finds, unique display pieces for your base, and progress toward a personal collection of reconstructed specimens.
• Planet type shapes what you dig up, so travelling between worlds is the main way to broaden your collection.

Overview

Paleontology is the archaeology-flavoured layer the Relics update added on top of ordinary planetside exploration. Instead of harvesting a resource node and moving on, you find a site holding buried remains, work the ground open piece by piece, and carry away fragments of something that used to walk the planet. Those fragments are then reassembled into a standing skeleton.

The activity sits comfortably beside the exploration loop you already run. You are still landing on unfamiliar worlds, still using the Analysis Visor to read the terrain, still weighing whether a hazardous planet is worth the visit. The difference is that fossil sites give you a reason to stop and work a single spot, and they hand back something you can put on display rather than something you sell and forget. For a broader look at what recent patches have changed, see our 2026 update roundup.

What the Paleontology System Actually Is

At its core the system has three stages: locate, excavate, reconstruct.

Locating means finding a dig site on a planet's surface. Excavating means removing material around buried remains without destroying them, recovering fragments in the process. Reconstructing means taking those fragments back to a workspace, fitting them together, and producing a finished skeleton you can keep.

Each stage is self-contained, so you can bank fragments across several planets and reconstruct later, or focus a session entirely on digging. There is no timer pushing you along, and abandoned sites remain workable when you return.

The remains you recover belong to creature types that fit the world you found them on. Frozen and barren worlds tend to yield different specimens than lush ones, which is why serious collectors treat this as a reason to visit biomes they would otherwise skip. Our planet types and biomes guide is a useful companion when you are deciding where to spend a session.

Getting and Equipping the Excavation Tool

Excavation uses a dedicated tool rather than your standard mining beam. You acquire it by starting the paleontology questline, which is introduced through the game's normal mission channels once the content is available to your save. Following that introduction to its conclusion gets you the equipment and a guided first dig.

Once acquired, the tool lives on your multi-tool and is selected the same way you switch to the Terrain Manipulator or the Analysis Visor. It is a mode, not a separate inventory item you have to carry loose, and it does not consume one of your weapon slots.

A few practical notes before your first real outing:

• Keep inventory space free. Fragments take up room, and a productive site can fill several slots. Exosuit expansion pays for itself here.
• Bring hazard protection. Digging is stationary work, and standing still on a hostile world drains protection steadily.
• Travel with a ship you can land anywhere. Sites are frequently nowhere near a settlement or trade post.

Finding Dig Sites on a Planet

Fossil sites are found the same way most planetside points of interest are found: by scanning from the ground or from low altitude and following the marker that appears. If you are still building the scanning habit, our Analysis Visor walkthrough covers the fundamentals.

In practice, three approaches work well:

1. Low, slow flight. Skim the surface and scan repeatedly. Covering ground quickly turns up more candidate sites per minute than walking.
2. Exocraft sweeps. A ground vehicle with a scanner module lets you cover terrain while staying close enough to spot surface indicators.
3. Working a good planet thoroughly. When a world produces specimens you want, stay on it. Hopping constantly wastes more time in flight than it saves.

Sites are visible on the surface once you are near them. Expect disturbed ground, exposed material, or partially visible remains rather than a building or structure. They are natural features, not ruins.

The Excavation Process

Excavation rewards patience. The point is to clear away what covers the remains without wrecking what you are trying to recover, so the tool works in a controlled, close-range way rather than carving huge holes. Work around the buried pieces, expose them, and collect each one as it comes free.

Two habits make sessions go faster. First, finish a site rather than skimming the easy pieces, since a partial haul is harder to turn into a complete specimen. Second, note the planet you dug on. When you later want a second copy of something, knowing where it came from saves a long search.

Assembling and Displaying Skeletons

Reconstruction happens away from the dig, at a workspace rather than in the field. You bring your recovered fragments, fit them together into a whole specimen, and the finished skeleton becomes a placeable object.

Displayed skeletons are large. A reconstructed specimen is a centrepiece, and cramming several into a small room wastes them. Builders generally get better results with a dedicated hall: high ceiling, open floor, lighting placed to throw shadows across the bones, and enough walking room to see a specimen from more than one angle. Glass roofing works well for a museum wing, especially on a world with dramatic skies.

Placement is worth planning before you build. If you intend to collect seriously, set aside floor area from the start rather than retrofitting a display room later. Our best base locations guide is worth a read if you are choosing a site for a museum-style build, since a scenic planet does a lot of the work for you.

Trading Bones and the Fossil Collector

You will dig up pieces you do not want, and you will end a project one piece short. Both problems have the same answer: a Fossil Collector NPC now stationed on space stations. You can trade unsuitable bones to them and buy the pieces your specimen is missing, which means a half-finished skeleton is a shopping trip rather than a dead end.

Fragments can also be traded with other players, so a piece that is useless to you may complete someone else's display.

Digging on the Ocean Floor

Sites are not limited to dry land. Excavations also appear on the sea floor, which pairs naturally with underwater traversal. If you are working submerged sites regularly, the Nautilon submarine in the Exocraft guide makes the trip far less tedious than swimming.

Ancient Guardians

Relics also introduced a family of colossal enemies made of stone and bone, encountered while hunting for fossils. They are slow, rocky specters rather than the agile Sentinel patrols you may be used to, and they turn a quiet dig into a fight without warning. Travel to a promising site with shields charged rather than assuming excavation is a peaceful activity.

What You Get Out of It

The rewards split three ways.

Units. Excavated material has sale value, and duplicates or surplus fragments convert to income. Fossil hunting is not the fastest money in the game, and treating it purely as an income engine will disappoint you. As a paying side effect of an activity you enjoy, it holds up fine.

Display pieces. A reconstructed skeleton is a base decoration you cannot get any other way. For players who build, this is the real draw. A hall of assembled specimens reads as something you earned across many planets, which no purchased decoration achieves.

Collection progress. Because what you dig up varies by world, building a broad collection means visiting a broad range of worlds. That gives structure to open-ended exploration and a concrete reason to land on planets you would otherwise fly past.

FAQ

Do I need to finish the questline before I can dig anywhere?

Yes, in the practical sense. The introductory mission chain is how you get the excavation tool, and without it you cannot work a site. Once it is done, digging is free-form and you can pursue sites anywhere.

Can I excavate with my normal Terrain Manipulator instead?

No. Excavation uses its own tool mode. The Terrain Manipulator moves terrain in bulk, which is the opposite of what recovering intact remains requires.

Does planet type change what I find?

Yes. Specimens correspond to the kind of world you are digging on, so a collection built entirely on one biome will be narrow. Rotating through biomes is the standard advice for filling out a collection.

Are skeletons permanent once placed in a base?

They behave like other base objects. As long as the base persists, the display persists. Build the display area on a base you intend to keep rather than a temporary outpost.

Is this worth doing if I do not build bases?

Less so. The units are modest and the strongest reward is a physical collection you display somewhere. If you never build, the activity loses most of its payoff.

Key Takeaways

Paleontology is the closest No Man's Sky has come to giving exploration a trophy case. Most exploration income evaporates the moment you spend it, and most discoveries live in a menu you rarely reopen. A reconstructed skeleton stays where you put it, at the size the creature actually was, in a room you designed for it.

That changes how the surrounding activities feel. Scanning a world stops being purely a payout and becomes reconnaissance. Choosing a base planet gains an extra criterion, because a museum wing wants space and a view. Visiting a bleak, low-value world becomes defensible when it holds specimens no lush planet will produce.

The correct way to approach it is as a long, unhurried collection project rather than a grind with an optimal route. Dig sites out fully, carry fragments home in batches, and give the finished specimens room to breathe. Players who treat fossil hunting as a units-per-hour calculation tend to drop it within a few sessions. Players who treat it as building a museum tend to keep going for months.