Stellar Archaeology: New Science with Old Stars

Abstract

The abundance patterns of metal-poor stars provide us a wealth of chemical information about various stages of cosmic chemical evolution. In particular, these stars allow us to study the formation and evolution of the elements, and the involved nucleosynthesis processes. This knowledge is invaluable for our understanding of the nature and condition of the early Universe, and the associated processes of early star- and galaxy formation. This proceeding summarizes the astrophysical topics and questions that can be addressed with metal-poor stars. For the full version of the review, the reader is referred to Frebel 2010.