The role of parent material is best understood from studies of soils that formed under similar conditions on different parent materials or lithosequences (differing soil profile characteristics because of differing parent materials). This provides a starting point for understanding what role the parent material played during the formation of the soil. The generalized relationships obtained from these studies can be used to determine what effects the parent material had on the paleosol during its formation. The difficulty lies with the fact that the parent material no longer exists, and therefore its nature can only be estimated using nearby materials.