Literally since they first set foot on the Earth’s surface, humans and their hominid ancestors have affected soils. The degree of effect humans have on soils varies from the most subtle, which could include simply walking across the soil, to the most dramatic, such as wholesale removal, mixing, or burial associated with urbanization. Butzer (1982, pp. 123–156) and Davidson (1982) present very useful summaries of the history and nature of such influence in a geoarchaeological context. Geoarchaeologists can be confronted with soils subjected to a wide degree of anthropogenic alteration. The detection of these alterations and their differential distribution can, in theory, be used to determine site boundaries, define stratigraphic relationships, delimit intrasite activity areas and features, and aid in their functional interpretation (Woods, 1984, p. 67). The primary challenge is detecting the human-induced alteration and then, of course, interpreting it. In a very broad sense, the detectability of human impact is roughly proportional to the degree of impact; that is, very subtle alterations are difficult or impossible to detect, but more substantial changes are more obvious. As in most other aspects of archaeology, interpreting the meaning of anthropogenic effects on soils is much more problematic. The study of human impacts on soils is one of the oldest applications of soil studies in archaeology, particularly in regions with a long history of significant human modification of the environment. The topic is also an important part of soil science and agriculture. As a result, there is a very large literature on the topic, especially for the Old World. There well may be more writing on this aspect of soils research in archaeology than on all others combined. The topic is of such interest because human impacts on soils can be so obvious and pervasive in archaeological contexts; recognizing human impacts is critical in sorting out artificial versus natural pedogenic and other geogenic processes; it provides another avenue of research into understanding the relationship between humans and their environment, especially the landscape; and it offers another means of getting at human behavior, either directly, as in studies of mound construction or agriculture, or more indirectly, as in studies of humaninduced soil erosion. Regardless, the subject has long been of interest in archaeology and geoarchaeology.
Analysis of Ownership Data from Consolidated Land Threatened by Water Erosion in the Vlára Basin, Slovakia
