The aim of this session is to bring together scholars from the fields of archaeology (from Prehistory to the Middle Ages) and natural sciences (geography-geomorphology mostly), in order to discuss the ”thorny” question of reading time in sedimentary sequences inside and beyond settlements, and its use for a joint reconstruction of past events. It is not always easy indeed to interpret correctly the different lines of evidence and establish solid links between the two records, in order to formulate well-built proposals about their relation — in terms of time (contemporaneous, prior, posterior) or causality (related, simply coeval, irrelevant). We wish to put forward the following elements:a)The necessity to take into account for our interpretations not only the density or the precision of time measures (diagnostic artefacts, absolute dates – especially radiocarbon) but also the nature of the dated facts and the adequacy of the elements used for dating with respect to the dated contexts and to the questions underlying the dating. A charcoal found in a house destruction layer and another found in a colluvium that reworked this same layer do not provide the same information in terms of temporal framing — and this, independent of the short- or long-lived character of the charred wood plant-species. The discrepancies generated by such contextual differences are essential for our understanding of the succession or amplitude of past events. Speaking of “time reading” instead of ”time measurement” is a way to draw attention on this important aspect.b)The necessity of a closer dialogue between specialists from the two disciplines that would overcome the separation between intra-site and off-site records, the former being considered as the “ground” of archaeologists, the latter being that of geomorphologists. Although convenient in practical terms and justified to a certain point, this separation minimizes indeed the interaction between the two spaces over the short, middle and long terms (people impacting on their environment but also living with it or “bringing it” at home), and neglects the similarities in the approaches, or the methodological tools, used here and there (core-drills applied inside settlements, study of artefacts’ distribution in areas off, etc.). Ultimately, comparisons between intra-site (i.e. basically anthropogenic) sequences with neighbouring off-site (i.e. basically environmental) sequences need to take into account, in addition to distance distortion, the effects of time delay observed, or estimated, in the recording of mutual impacts.This session is proposed as part of the activities of the Working Group ‘Environmental and Social changes in the Past’, animated in the frame of the Cluster of Excellence ”Dynamite” (Territorial and Spatial Dynamics) of the University Paris 1-Sorbonne. Its topic illustrates the kind of questions asked by the Group’s members and anticipates the kind of answers that could be given in return. Papers or posters focusing on this topic (time measurement/time reading, dialogue archaeological stratigraphy/environmental sequence, building of historical scenarios) are welcome in our session.