If paleomammalogy be 'the branch of zoology that studies the mammals of past geologic ages', may we not be forgiven if wrongly supposing palaeopsychology to be defined as 'the branch of psychology that studies the mind of past ages'. But we seem to need no forgiveness, for a trawl around the internet has uncovered the following from Questia:

paleopsychology The study of psychological processes supposedly left over from an earlier stage of human EVOLUTION. For example, Jung’s suggestion of a COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS.

Definition courtesy of The Concise Dictionary of Psychology, p.97

There seems not to be much interest in this field from English scientists, if the two spellings of the word - palaeopsychology and paleopsychology - provide any indication of nationality, but in 1997 Howard Bloom wrote this Manifesto for a New Psychological Science to inaugurate (I presume) The International Paleopsychology Project, which aims to '[map] out the evolution of complexity, sociality, perception, and mentation from the first 10-32 second of the Big Bang to the present'. No small task I wouldn't have thought.

In fact, it's fascinating the way that this little script of mine, running as it is on a fairly modern computer and an operating system not much older than one year, has now thrown up two words beginning with 'pal(a)eo-' (dealing with the distant past) and one (in the shape of 'sitology') having been entirely superseded by a newer term.

Now, I feel this chapter has just about run its course and that we must move on into the next one, so the plan of action now runs as follows:

I will run my ologies script six times in succession, throwing up six random possibilities for an article; then before next week's article is due to be written I will decide between, 1) selecting one of those words and writing an article on it next week, to follow it on the week after with a summation of the chapter; 2) same as 1) with the exception that the summation will form part of the same article; or 3) disregarding all of the words, and merely finishing the chapter with the summation next week.

Here goes...

[matt@werewolf ~]$ ologies ; ologies ; ologies ; ologies ; ologies ; ologies
acanthology
psychophysiology
palaeocosmology
serophysiology
petralogy
noology
[matt@werewolf ~]$ ❚

Would you believe it? Another 'palaeo-'! Let's see.