Dark earth
<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>
Dark earth in archaeology is an archaeological horizon, as much as 1 m (2 – 3 ft) thick, indicating settlement over long periods of time.
In England, dark earth notably seals remains of Roman date, particularly so in urban locations. In the example of London, deposits underlying the ancient city's dark earth are often dated to between the 2nd to 5th century AD, with overlying deposits frequently dated to the 9th century. The dark earth shows little evidence of any depositional structure or 'horizons', although tip lines are sometimes recorded.
In Sweden, dark earth covering 40 hectares has been found in Uppåkra (in southernmost Sweden, former Denmark), where city-like settlement existed from about the year 1 until 1000 C.E.[clarification needed] when the settlement shifted to modern day Lund. Dark earth over 7 hectares has been found in the Viking city of Björkö (today called Birka), in central Sweden, close to modern Stockholm. Dark earth has also been found in Köpingsvik, on the island of Öland close to the southern Sweden east cost.
The material is high in organic matter, including charcoal, which gives it its characteristic dark colour; it may also contain fragments of pottery, tile, animal bone and other artefacts. In some cases, it may represent open spaces on the edge of urban centres, but can also be found in more rural settings in and around foci of settlement. In London, it has been taken as evidence of the decline of Londinium's population or of its partial displacement outside the city walls.
Some archaeologists see dark earth as reworked urban stratigraphy, indicating timber, smoke-impregnated thatch, decayed weeds, and earth floors reworked by worm action.[1] They argue that late Roman cemeteries around London do not show a population decline compared with earlier London. More recent "reworked stratigraphy" ideas are based on theories that abandoned soils were reworked by agricultural action, such as ploughing, which mixed building materials from the abandoned Roman cities into stratigraphy higher up the sequence.
Dark earth was originally called 'black earth' by archaeologists in London. Because of confusion with the chernozem (black earth soils in Russia), it was renamed dark earth.
