SCI-FI: Time travel and missing dinosaurs

[Rebecca]

The novel starts with people (maybe scientists) traveling back in time to study the dinosaurs. However, once they arrive in prehistoric times, they can't find any dinosaurs even though they've found fossils in their own time. They travel back to their own time and eventually find out that aliens brought the dinosaur bones to the earth and left them there for people to find. This would be an older science fiction novel. My friend thinks she read this book in college (later 1960's), but it is possible that she read it in grad school or later.

[SamSpayedPI]

The description reminded my a bit of Strata by Terry Pratchett. However, it was published too late (1981) and the plot doesn't really match: in Strata, terra-formers include a false fossil-record in the planets they construct.

[Michele]

Was it a full-length novel or a short story? Ray Bradbury wrote a number of dino-based stories (including the very famous "A Sound of Thunder") which have been collected in Dinosaur Tales.

[Rebecca]

Michele wrote: "Was it a full-length novel or a short story? Ray Bradbury wrote a number of dino-based stories (including the very famous "A Sound of Thunder") which have been collected in [book:Dinosaur Tales|381..."

Thanks for your reply. She's certain it was a novel, but I looked into the collection just to be sure.

[Rebecca]

SamSpayedPI wrote: "The description reminded my a bit of Strata by Terry Pratchett. However, it was published too late (1981) and the plot doesn't really match: in Strata, terra..."

Thanks for your reply. I checked out Strata. The thing about the fake fossils sounds really close, but the rest doesn't quite match.