Geoarchaeological meeting of Brugge: Soils as records of Past and Present: the geoarchaeological approach. Focus on: is there time for fieldwork today? - Bruges (Belgium), 6 & 7.11.2019. -Abstract book.

This document is edited at the occasion of the Geoarchaeological meeting of Brugge: Soils as records of Past and Present: the geoarchaeological approach. Focus on: is there time for fieldwork today? - Bruges (Belgium), 6 & 7.11.2019. It contains the abstracts of talks and posters presented during the scientific meeting and the abstracts of papers of the book edited at this occasion (Deák et al., 2019)

In the past few decades, soil science has contributed greatly to discussions on climatic and environmental changes, as well as to the understanding of various topics of human impact on landscapes and the environment. This meeting aims to address these complex issues and to demonstrate how they are approached and unravelled through past and current interdisciplinary research. The plenary talks, the posters and the scientific paper of the book edited at the occasion of this meeting try to answer the following questions:

• What is the current state of research on soils as a record of past and present?
• How is soil research able to contribute to the unravelling of important archaeological issues?
• How do formerly collected soil data help us today?
• Can we still learn from nature through field observation?
• Is there still time to do fieldwork?
• Is fieldwork sufficiently relevant, or should it be entirely replaced by graphs and modelling?
• How do we deal with limited budgets when an infinite number of soils characteristics exist and many analyses are possible?
• How to continue when sometimes authorities are reluctant and collaborations are hampered?
• What are some of the future challenges?

By organising this meeting, we would like to pay honour to all the scientific contributions of Roger Langohr, who manages to fascinate, motivate and promote scientists that are active in various research fields and come from all parts of the world.

November 2019