Spectacular, mysterious, elegant or grotesque, the skeletons of vertebrates peopling the Earth today carry within them the traces of an evolution spanning several billion years. Patrick Gries has photographed in B&W over 250 skeletons from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and four other museums in France. His work is at the crossroads of photography, contemporary art and sciences.

This project conceived by Xavier Barral and Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu has been published in the book Evolution in co-edition with the National Museum of Natural History, Paris. It chronicles the history of our era, a history recorded in these bones.