This long-awaited volume is a worthy successor to Soils and Micromorphology in Archaeology (Courty, Goldberg, and Macphail, Cambridge University Press, 1989), but it is not a new edition. This volume is largely a more extensive and intensive review of example-based soil micromorphology in an archaeological context. The authors provide adequate summaries of most basic concepts in geoarchaeology (e.g., sediments, facies, and soils), but that is taken care of within the first 27 pages. Otherwise they refer the reader to their previous book (long out of print) or other basic geoarchaeology works. These points are not intended as criticism, just as an acknowledgment that the 2018 book is more of a companion to, rather than a replacement of, the 1989 volume.

Micromorphology is the microscopic study of soils and sediments, largely by means of a petrographic microscope—a contrast with what can be called “macro-morphology,” which is the examination of soils and sediments in the field that most of us are familiar with in geoarchaeology. It is quite literally a look at an entirely different world, and when conducted in an archaeological context with archaeological questions in mind, it is an invaluable complement to traditional field geoarchaeology. Micromorphology has been a subdiscipline of geoarchaeology since the 1970s, and Macphail and Goldberg are two of the best-known and most prolific practitioners of this craft. In my experience, micromorphology always garners a lot of interest from geoarchaeology students, but training is long and tedious. The upshot is that there are very few practitioners of soil micromorphology in geoarchaeology in North America.

Part I of the book presents the background. Chapter 1 covers the basics noted above but also the importance of reference collections of slides, sampling and lab analyses, and discussion of the little-known but significant realm of experimental geoarchaeology. Chapter 2 deals with macro- and micro-fossil studies that complement not only geoarchaeological micro- and macro-morphology but a wide range of subdisciplines in environmental archaeology. The section also includes a useful introduction to instrumental analyses, which have become much more widely applied in geoarchaeology and which include many new methods developed since 1989. A detailed summary of the nuts and bolts of micromorphological description is presented in Chapter 3. Just as recordings of systematic and detailed descriptions are required in field geoarchaeology, they form the underpinning of micromorphology. Macphail and Goldberg are perhaps the best in the business in explaining this task.

Part II of the volume is a set of chapters dealing with soils and sediments from archaeological sites in subaerial settings familiar to most of us. The authors discuss various types of soils, largely using European soils terminology but including US equivalents, and the effects of burial on soils and associated archaeological materials. Here they draw on some fascinating long-term (decades-long) experiments involving twentieth-century reconstructions of barrows and other structures. Also presented (Chapter 5) are examples from alluvial, colluvial, and wetland settings. The final chapter in this section (Chapter 6) deals with archaeological sites in inundated freshwater and coastal marine settings, perhaps not as well known to many North American practitioners.

The section on archaeological materials (Part III) covers micromorphological research on construction materials; the effects of fire on archaeological deposits, including construction materials; remnants of industrial and artisan activities; and fecal waste. And the final section of the book (Part IV) is expressly a landscape approach, which is unusual in most textbooks or reviews of geoarchaeology, all the more so given that the methodological approach focuses on the collection, preparation, and analysis of thin sections. The authors begin with “First Records of Human Activity” (Chapter 8), referring to hominin hunter-gatherers, who left relatively meager traces at archaeological sites. The next chapters apply micromorphology to subsequent technological and behavioral developments in human history, including agriculture and permanent settlements; and the section closes with discussions of the effects of postdepositional processes on the archaeological record.

Applied Soils and Micromorphology in Archaeology is an outstanding contribution to the geoarchaeological literature. Throughout the book, the authors demonstrate, largely through their own unique and extensive research around much of the globe, how micromorphology can address questions of human activity in the past. The book is well put together and very well illustrated. The printed volume includes black-and-white photographs and illustrations, but two Internet links in the book connect readers to color versions of the illustrations and a more extensive bibliography than is included in the print version of the book. The book is also well priced, and it is probably one of the best deals in geoarchaeological publications going.

Readers should be aware of two potential problems they may encounter, not really shortcomings of the book but hurdles for readers to cross. Most of the many examples presented are based on research by Macphail and Goldberg. The result is a focus on archaeological sites in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom, with a few other examples from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Meanwhile, as with any specialized field, there is a large amount of jargon. The volume does not define most terms used (e.g., micromorphology, paleosol). This is fair enough, considering that it is a companion to a volume with more introductory material. But readers without extensive experience in geology or soil science should have a reference work handy. Otherwise, this book from 2018 is a very successful companion to the coauthors’ book from 1989 on micromorphology in geoarchaeology.