Soil plays a fundamental role in characterising landscape and environment. In some cases, its properties may be unique and concomitant to specific contexts that hold heritages relevant for historical reasons to human development, such as particular environmental conditions, archaeological contexts or specific local activities marked by artefacts, erected monuments, ancient settlements, etc.
While information may be lost at sites, soil can retain information through its slow changes over time and reveal key evidence about specific environments and settings associated with human history.
Specific features may include characteristic soil types based on specific soil processes (e.g., erosion, hydromorphy, concretion formation, chemical degradation, etc.), properties such as OC, salinity, or conditions affected by particular genetic or morphologic conditions, such as buried soils, palaeosols, or other singular aspects.
The primary goal of this session is to gather case studies from diverse situations which highlight the role of soil as a marker or witness of remarkable environmental-human events in historic and prehistoric times. This session is designed to foster collaboration among soil scientists, geologists, and archaeologists.