Soils Systems As a Tool in Archaeology.

A system has four requirements: (1) diverse agents, (2) the agents are connected, (3) interdependence among the agents, and (4) the system adapts. This paper explores how these four requirements are met in soil-geomorphic studies designed to provide clues about climate change that would have affect prehistoric people. In particular, it focuses on how climate change produces alternating periods of landscape stability and soil formation versus landscape instability and erosion.