For the second time, a session dedicated to Geoarchaeolo- gy occurred in Vienna within the framework of the EGU 2009 meeting (European Geosciences Union, General As- sembly 2009, Vienna, Austria, 19-24 April 2009). The ses- sion is a growing sector in the Geomorphology Division of the EGU, with twenty-seven abstracts received and twelve oral presentations made. The session was under the patrona- ge of the Working Group of Geoarchaeology from the Inter- national Association of Geomorphologists (Chairman at that time: Eric Fouache) and was titled: 'Geoarchaeology: an approach at the interface between environmental recons- truction and human settlement' (GM11.1, chair person: Mat- thieu Ghilardi; co-conveners: Eric Fouache and Richard Chiverrell). Geoarchaeology must be considered as a multi-disciplina- ry approach rather than a single discipline. Indeed, the aim is to further understanding of the connectivity between human activity/settlement and the wider environmental context over Holocene and longer timescales. Rapid evolution or changes in the landscape are often correlated with archaeological evi- dence to assist the interpretation of sediment or landform ar- chives, but discerning the nature of the relationship between human activity and landscape is often more elusive: cause, effect or a mixture of both? The following themes were ex- plored by scientists involved in this volume dedicated to geoarchaeology: human-environment connectivity, the lin- kages between site/activity and geomorphological process/re- cord; sediment provenance disentangling depositional se- quences (geochemistry, sediment analyses, etc.); chronostra- tigraphy (boreholes/stratigraphic trenches) of archaeological sites and wider environments. Spatial interpretation of geoar- chaeological evidence is actually much more used to propose dynamic mapping of archaeological areas. GIS methods in- cluding data derived from remote sensing and geophysical re- sults (Electrical Resistivity Tomography) are very well ap- plied to environmental and archaeological questions. Particular attention has been paid by the authors to Medi- terranean countries (Greece, Italy, and Tunisia) which com- prise two thirds of the articles. The first paper deals with karstic processes: David Psomiadis and colleagues present the palaeoenvironmental study of a speleothem (stable iso- topes measurements) linked to the human occupation of a cave in Macedonia, northern Greece. Again in Greece, the linkages between human settlement history and the morpho- logical evolution of karstic depressions created by the car- bonate dissolution in central-east Crete were studied by Christoph Siart and Matthieu Ghilardi using a novel asso- ciation of sediment analyses linked to geophysical results. In Italy, an outstanding work was realised on the formation of dune ridges and secondary dunes associated with the pro- gradation of the Tiber Delta and the development of Roman archaeological sites: the impact of human activities on sedi- ment budgets is clearly shown in this paper written by An- drew Bicket and colleagues. In Tunisia, the geoarchaeologi- cal research undertaken by Kamel Zerai in the wadi Sbeïtla highlights a very interesting study of stratigraphic profiles where human artifacts and radiocarbon dating help to iden- tify different phases of alluvial deposition during the Holo- cene. Further east, Richard C. Chiverrell and Zosia H. Ar- chibald present research on the landscape-human interac- tions associated with a Classical and early Hellenistic period (~600-100 BC) former fluvial harbour located in southern central Bulgaria. Their paper presents a brief overview of the history of occupation and human activity at the site, but focuses on integrating the archaeological and geomorpholo- gical evidence to produce a better understanding of the evo- lution of the surrounding landscape. Finally, an original work done by Carsten Lemmen using the modeling of land cover changes during Pre-Bronze Age aims to evaluate the consequences of human deforestation on carbon release since the Neolithic. This last paper illustrates an important deve- lopment in the geoarchaeological studies where computer modeling provides a dynamic simulation of the landscape modified by human activities. We would like to acknowledge Gilles Arnaud-Fassetta, Editor-in-Chief of the journal for his invaluable help and advice, without his constant support this volume will not have been published. We want to thank the seventeen refe-