At Buto, Sais and Bubastis in the Nile delta, temples were built on gentle rising mounds surrounded by canals and lakes, representing a perfect fusion of natural and sacred landscapes. The waters served cultic purposes and played an important role in local mythological traditions. The paper aims to reconstruct those sacred waterways, canals and marshes according to recent geoarchaeological and philological research and to assess their impact on the evolution of key mythological narratives.

Based on a new method, this paper proves the presence of several lakes during Greco-Roman antiquity in the Mariut basin and the digging of a canal network (up to 12 km long) in the Roman period to link them to Lake Mareotis. This challenges a 2-century-long scientific tradition according to which Lake Mareotis naturally linked Taposiris Magna to Alexandria during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. It is thus a starting point for new analyses of regional archaeology and geoarchaeology.

The Butic Canal, a Roman-period artificial waterway transversing the Egyptian Nile Delta, is investigated by means of newly available remote sensing data (the TanDEM-X digital elevation model and Corona satellite imagery). New features of the construction can thus be detected. Adding historical sources, the canal's function(s) and chronology are discussed.

The contribution highlights the use of Landsat archive data (1985–2019) for the detection of surface anomalies potentially related to buried near-surface paleogeomorphological deposits in the Nile Delta (Egypt). The analyses of selected spectral-temporal metrics showed several anomalies in the immediate surroundings of Pleistocene sand hills (geziras) and settlement mounds (tells) of the eastern Delta, which allowed mapping of the potential near-surface continuation.

In this editorial, we give a short state of the art of geoarchaeology, including recent advancements and challenges, and shortly present the seven contributions to our special issue.

This study combines geomorphological–hydrological analyses with the distribution of archaeological sites and obsidian raw material outcrops within the catchment of the Bisare River, Mt Damota, and Mt Sodicho (southwestern Ethiopian Highlands). The current highly dynamic hydrological system, strong recent sediment erosion, and increased human impact lead to land degradation, resulting in exposure of lithic raw material outcrops and destruction of archaeological material.

It was possible to define the turning point from extremely clayey and organic- rich sedimentation in the Early and Middle Holocene towards the deposition of coarser-grained and less organic overbank fines in the lower Pleiße valley near Leipzig, NW Saxony. This change occurred between 4000 and 3300 BCE more than 1000 years after the beginning of Early Neolithic settlement and was obviously linked with land clearance by the first farmers.

This study investigates Neolithic settlement dynamics by combining archaeological source criticism and archaeopedological data from colluvial deposits. It is shown that the distribution of Neolithic sites in the Baar region is distorted by superimposition due to erosion. Furthermore, the preservation conditions for pottery are limited by weathering effects. By complementing archaeological data with phases of colluviation we are able to point out settlement dynamics throughout the Neolithic.

Soils are an important source of geoarchaeological information. The archaeological soil archive is extremely endangered by intensive agriculture. Different approaches for problem-solving strategies that derive from daily practice in cultural heritage management are described.

This case study provides a reconstruction of settlement and land-use history since the 13th century CE in a small valley in the Ore Mountains (Saxony). Archaeological evidence shows settlement activities with a strong building and mining activities that also triggered local soil erosion. After the abandonment of the site in the middle of the 15th century CE and a reafforestation, later land use in the area occurred in the form of charcoal production.

Provided here are novel data concerning site formation processes and Middle Palaeolithic human presence at Cotencher cave (Switzerland). A local glaciation around 70 ka was followed by ice-free conditions, when artefacts and faunal remains were displaced by solifluction processes. Evidence of local glacier development around 36 ka is also presented. This interdisciplinary study contributes new elements for the understanding of climatic changes and human passage in the central Jura Mountains.