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The notion of age is ever-present in the study of morphology; some researchers expressed concern that the continued survival of past forms into the present might hinder the attainment of an optimum state by means of evolution. For Marcel Poëte, there was:

[...] a difficulty in reconciling the highly-evolved living conditions of the modern day with these persistent remains. How can ancient country paths, evolving into roads, be suitable for automobile circulation, in a city which has, itself, lasted from a past agricultural age to the current age of powerful industrialization without casting off its old skin? (Poëte 2000, p. 23)ssss1

The notion of age is also integral to the cycle of erosion concept in geomorphology, introduced by William M. Davis (1850–1934) and popularized in France by Henri Baulig (Masutti 2002). In this idealized model, landforms develop through a series of evolutions, step by step, finally resulting – when conditions allow – in a peneplain. The erosion cycle concept provides a means of explaining evolutions in a landscape. Under the effects of erosion, relief goes through a number of different “ages”, from youth to maturity and onto old age. Davis believed that, using this model, the past and future states of a relief form could be predicted based on observations of a present state (Meynier 1969, p. 58).