The landscape we live in today is the result of millennia of transformations. Many would have happened in any case, regardless of our presence. Others, especially in the past twelve thousand years, have occurred as our predecessors have begun to domesticate animals and plants... then they developed key innovations such as writing which allowed information to be disseminated in space and time. In the last century, urbanization is the defining global phenomenon. More than half the world’s population lives in urban areas, and by 2030, in developing countries, the urban population is expected to double, and entire built-up areas are projected to triple, if current trends continue. Furthermore, in a period like this, in which after two years of pandemic the war has sadly returned to Europe, however, it is not possible to forget that in analysing our past the greatest transformations of the societies, and the environment in which they lived, occurred in coincidence with tragic events such as wars or epidemics. This course aims to involve you in the examination of all these transformations, especially the fingerprint recorded by the soils that are under our feet.

(Thumbnail photo by Tim Mossholder @ pexels.com)