  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.
