During the nineteenth century, scientists such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin found that the impact of some human activities had modified the natural environment on a local scale. The Lombard geologist Antonio Stoppani, who is considered one of the fathers of modern Italian geology, shared this perspective and placed it at the heart of one of the theories for which he is best known, that of the Anthropozoic era. Since his geological fieldwork focused mainly on the Italian peninsula, Stoppani was used to an extremely anthropised natural environment such as Italy, and this familiarity may have been crucial to the development of his theory.