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Environmental archaeology encompasses a wide range of scientific methods for analyzing the results of past human activities, environments, climates, and perhaps, most importantly, the relationships between these. Many of these methods are referred to as proxy analyses, denoting the illumination of the past as interpreted indirectly through the evidence of fossil organisms or properties. These lines of evidence, or proxy data sources, are assumed to reflect past conditions by way of their dependence on them. For example, a species of beetle may only survive within a specific climate range, and thus its presence in samples indicates this climate at the time of deposition; organic waste deposited around a farmstead will raise soil phosphate levels above those of the surrounding land; and the presence of cereal grains in postholes suggests their local cultivation or import, usage, or storage.