Environmental change and human activity both have an impact on soil development, making soils and palaeosols important and significant long-term geo-ecological and geo-archaeological archives. The subject of this special issue includes relevant aspect of soils in various climatic zones including soil and sediment analyses to reconstruct palaeoenvironments and historical and more recent human impact on geo-ecosystems.

Can we identify the interplay between natural and cultural influence reflected in the soil changing over space and time? The aim of this special issue is to present and debate cutting-edge progress in knowledge and techniques, contributing new reconstructions of natural and cultural landscape evolution and enhanced geochronology of sequences of sediments and palaeosols. In doing so we offer new insights into the complex relationships between landscape evolution, climate change, human activity, resilience and sustainability. This special issue will be relevant to researchers working in a wide range of interdisciplinary areas including pedology, archaeology, geoarchaeology, anthropology, environmental history, Quaternary sciences, e.g. palaeoclimatology and sedimentology, and landscape ecology.