In “Prehistoric Road Trip,” a new, limited-edition PBS series premiering Wednesday, Graslie takes you there, and back in time, to the past organisms that left indelible marks on the Great Plains. In the three-part series, she crisscrosses South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska and Native American reservations.

All are home to some of the world’s most fascinating fossils, and with the help of curators, paleontologists and clever graphics, Graslie uses her trip to tell the story of fossil country, then and now. Along the way, she explains how fossils are formed, how scientists study them and what they reveal about long-gone life-forms.

For Graslie, who grew up in South Dakota, it’s an opportunity to share what she calls “really old, really dead stuff.” For viewers, it offers an opportunity to see scientists at work as they excavate, study and display everything from sauropod dinosaurs to the remains of leaves and clams from the long-gone Cretaceous Sea, which once covered a large swath of land between the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean.

The host also highlights fossils found on Native American lands such as the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Sixty-five million years ago, hundreds and possibly thousands of dinosaurs died there. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is the first to establish a paleontology code, an ordinance that protects its fossils and governs how they are managed and used. And tribal members staff their Museum of Natural History, which has collected over 10,000 fossils from the area’s rich Late Cretaceous fossil beds.

Graslie visits an unidentified site on the reservation that’s littered with dinosaur teeth and bones — a site she can’t name for fear that people will illegally collect the fossils — and covers the present-day effects of improper fossil collection.

The show airs on PBS stations Wednesdays through July 1 from 10 to 11 p.m. Eastern; check local listings for details.