Geoarchaeology, narrowly defined, is the use of the concepts, methods, and knowledge base of the earth sciences in the direct solution of archaeological problems. In the past, a majority of geoarchaeological researches have been concerned with the pre- and protohistorian phases of Man's antiquity. During the last two decades, however many regional archaeological surveys, which have procured data about settlement behaviour and forms of land use in ancient Greek and Roman times, have more and more integrated geomorphologic studies in their research. It seems that now also many scholars of the classical past are convinced that to tackle problems and questions concerning rural site formation processes, surface visibility, ancient land division, settlement location, etc. we need to fully integrate geomorphology and other earth sciences in the objectives and approach. In the present proceedings one may find contributions from many different areas, ranging from west to east, from Spain over Belgium and France, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, southern Russia to Jordan.
The range of applications include amongst others: GIS studies, aerial photography, stereoscopic very high resolution satellite imagery, stratigraphic analysis, palynology, artefact distribution analysis, total station surveying techniques, road network and cadastre analysis, site degradation studies, coastline reconstruction and erosion studies.