Black Earth: Dark Earth

Posted on May 16, 2016by malagabay

Dark Earth is an extraordinary substance that provokes an allergic reaction in Earth

Scientists which results in coughing, fidgeting and incoherent mumbling.
The potency of Dark Earth varies depending upon the specific mix unearthed at a site.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_earth
Soil Report on Rangoon Street, City of London
R. I. Macphail 1984
Ancient Monuments Laboratory Report 4443
Dark Earth
Structure: compacted medium sub-angular blocky with fine (120um) to large (1mm)
microaggregates; crack structure:
Porosity (30%) common very coarse cracks; few compound packing voids and fine
(15um ), short (50-250um) channels intrapedally:

Mineral: Coarse/Fine 65/ 35 : very dominant very fine (angular to sub-angular)

medium and coarse (sub-rounded to sub-angular) sand size quartz : unsorted :
few flints : very few opaques and sharp-edged nodules: glauconite,
limestone fragments present: few artefacts; very few pottery, mortar and
burned daub; brickearth, soil fragments, bone and shell present.
Fine: a) very dominant dark brown, black (PPL) , greyish; includes ash, dark brown
(RL):
Organic: Coarse: few charcoal: root fragments present.
Fine: a ) common charcoal charred plant material; dominant amorphous organic
matter, well preserved : amorphous organo-phosphatepresent:
Groundmass: a) low birefringence, weak crystallitic: enaulic:

Pedofeatures: common extremely thin elongate excrements, coalescing to moderately

thin: frequent moderately broad rugose :

Textural: fine (30um) dusty coatings present:

Crystalline: very few, calcitic coatings: vivianite present:

Amorphous: frequent impregnative ferro-manganiferous nodules: pale yellow-
brown possible organo-phosphate (includes vivianite crystals):
http://research.historicengland.org.uk/redirect.aspx?id=2830%7CSOIL%20REPORT
%20ON%20RANGOON%20ST,%20THE%20CITY
Two exotic minerals found in Dark Earth are highly allergenic: Vivianite and Glauconite.
Vivianite (Fe2+Fe2+2(PO4)28H2O) is a hydrated iron phosphate mineral found in a
number of geological environments.

Vivianite crystals are often found inside fossil shells, such as those of bivalves and
gastropods, or attached to fossil bone.

Vivianite is a secondary mineral found in a number of geologic environments: The

oxidation zone of metal ore deposits, in granite pegmatites containing phosphate
minerals, in clays and glauconitic sediments, and in recent alluvial
deposits replacing organic material such as peat, lignite, bog iron ores and
forest soils (All).
Bones and teeth buried in peat bogs are sometimes replaced by vivianite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivianite
Glauconite, also known as green sand is an iron potassium phyllosilicate (mica
group) mineral of characteristic green color with very low weathering resistance and
very friable.

Normally, glauconite is considered a diagnostic mineral indicative of

continental shelf marine depositional environments with slow rates of
accumulation.
For instance, it appears in Jurassic/lower Cretaceous deposits of greensand, so-called
after the coloration caused by glauconite.

It can also be found in sand or clay formations, or in impure limestones and in chalk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glauconite
British archaeologists have to endure digging through Dark Earth up to a metre thick.
Dark earth in archaeology is an archaeological horizon, as much as 1 m (2
3 ft) thick, indicating settlement over long periods of time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_earth
Whilst their European colleagues wade through Dark Earth up to two metres deep.
In archaeology the term black earth, in use since the 1980s, refers to a layer
between 0.6 m to 2 m thick, covering archaeological sites.

In England black earth covers Roman remains, especially in urban areas, including
London.
Excavations in Belgium, the Brussels-Capital Region, frequently uncover layers of
black earth.
In Sweden, an area of 40 hectares of black earth was discovered in Uppkra
(southern Sweden, formerly Denmark), where human settlement and a city existed
during the first millennium before the city was moved to Lund.
Seven hectares of black earth were uncovered in the Viking town of Bjrk (now called
Birka), in central Sweden, near Stockholm.

Black earth were also encountered in Kpingsvik, in the island of land off the coast of
southern Sweden.

In France, it has been discovered in Bavay, Corseul, Noyon, Tours at multiple sites
and in Paris at two sites, to name a few examples amongst many.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terres_noires

Inrap Atlas archologique Tours Square Prosper-Mrime

http://multimedia.inrap.fr/atlas/tours/sites/2446/Square-Prosper-Merimee
Archaeologists have unearthed numerous deposits of Dark Earth in London and have
managed to reconstruct the capricious movements of the infamous Dark Earth Fairy.
In Rangoon Street Dark Earth was accumulating until the 4th Century.
The site was first occupied in the mid 1st Century AD, and Dark Earth is believed to
have accumulated until the 4th Century, after which there is some late Saxon
activity concluding with a double inhumation dated 1015 30 AD (David Bowler, pers
comm: Bowler, 1983).
Soil Report on Rangoon Street, City of London R. I. Macphail October 1984
Ancient Monuments Laboratory Report 4443
http://research.historicengland.org.uk/redirect.aspx?id=2830%7CSOIL%20REPORT
%20ON%20RANGOON%20ST,%20THE%20CITY
In Milk Street Dark Earth was only spread over mid-second century Roman ruins.
Some reports suggest Dark Earth caused a radical transformation all over London in
the 3rd century after a successful trial run during the later 2nd century.
Therefore the changed nature of the latest buildings, the different character of their
decay and disuse, and the alterations to the road system can be put beside the dark
earth itself to suggest that, in the 3rd century, all the sites discussed here
underwent a similar radical transformationfrom their previous use, in a way
already anticipated in the later 2nd century but which remains otherwise
unexplained.
Early Development of Roman London west of the Walbrook
Dominic Perring & Steve Roskams with Patrick Allen
The Archaeology of Roman London Volume 2 CBA Research Report 70 1991
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-281-
1/dissemination/pdf/cba_rr_070.pdf
Others say Dark Earth almost invariably covers the latest Roman levels in London.
The dark earth and the deposits it overlies
It is almost invariably the case that, where the strata survive, the latest Roman
levels are sealed by deposits of dark-coloured loam, commonly called dark earth
(formerly black earth).
In the London area the dark earth generally appears as a dark grey, rather silty loam
with various inclusions, especially building material.

The deposit is usually without stratification and homogeneous in appearance. It can be

1 m or more in thickness.

The dark earth and late Roman London Brian Yule

Antiquity Volume 64 Issue 244 September 1990
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=94334
99
Whilst Wikipedia believes the Dark Earth Fairy was sprinkling her allergenic
ingredients over London from the 2nd to 5th century.
In England, dark earth covers many areas that were built up in the Roman period,
especially Londinium.

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 the example of London, deposits underlying the ancient citys dark earth
are often dated to between the 2nd to 5th century, the middle and later Roman
period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_earth
Wikipedia also explains [with a straight face] that Dark Earth is a soil enrichment
scheme [dreamt up by persons unknown at some point in history] whereby the sooty
remains of thatched roofs from houses without chimneys [from Scotland] plus some
other waste materials [including ash, charcoal, pottery, tiles, animal bones, shells,
mortar, burned daub, ferro-manganiferous nodules, glauconite] are pulverised and
crushed [on an industrial scale for hundreds of years] before being mixed together with
sand, gravel and all the other ingredients so that persons unknown could spread Dark
Earth [up to a metre deep] over the ruins of [for example] Roman London because they
wanted to grow a crop of vivianite crystals [which they would never harvest].
It is interpreted as soil enriched with the sooty remains of thatched roofs from
houses without chimneys, with other waste materials.
In some areas it appears to give the soil added fertility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_earth
To illustrate the reality of this soil enrichment scheme [for Central London] Wikipedia
very helpfully provides an image of a thatched blackhouse from the Isle of Skye,
Scotland.
There is no chimney on this house and the thatch becomes impregnated with soot.

When the roof is replaced, the waste thatch can add fertility to the soil, resulting in
dark earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_earth
Unsurprisingly, the blackhouse never made its way to England.
A blackhouse is a traditional type of house which used to be common in the
Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides, and Ireland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhouse
Its even debatable whether the thatched blackhouse existed before the 18th century.
Although the Lewis blackhouses have a look of real antiquity, most of the
upstanding ruins were built less than 150 years ago.

The immediate origins of the blackhouse are unclear as few pre-eighteenth

century examples have ever been excavated.
One reason for this is that, unlike their later counterparts, the early examples may
have been made of turf and thatch and quickly returned to the earth once
abandoned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhouse
Furthermore, the evidence from London indicates the city wasnt repopulated until the
9th century.

Overlying deposits are frequently dated to the 9th century when Saxon
London was repopulated and began to expand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_earth
Therefore, its probably kindest to consider these mythical people manufacturing Dark
Earth [on an industrial scale for centuries] as a figment of the fevered mainstream
imagination.
Please be gentle when you break the bad news about the Dark Earth Fairy.
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 Black Earth: Chernozem
6 Responses to Black Earth: Dark Earth

1. Louis Hissink says:

May 16, 2016 at 01:28

Tim,

The Amazon also has mysterious black earth deposits

The textbooks say it shouldnt be there. Thats justification enough for me to explore
why it is there, says Johannes Lehmann, a Cornell University professor specializing in
the chemistry and geology of soils.

Lehmann is one of a small band of researchers in the U.S., Europe and Brazil who are
deciphering the mysteries of terra preta after the phenomenon was discovered for the
third time a decade ago. At a major scientific meeting here last week, they explained that
the black earth of the Amazon is exciting for widely disparate scientific reasons:

1) Archaeology and anthropology. Terra preta typically is stuffed full of shards of

sophisticated pottery discarded as much as 2,000 years ago by an advanced civilization
whose existence wasnt even suspected.

2)Sustainable agriculture. Unlike the typical rainforest soils, the black earth can be
worked for years, with minimal fertilization. Yet, it is essentially man-made, created by
community activities that could be reproduced today by industrial means.

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/forestsorg
Probably the RTE as well. And Inca rock constructions are also vitrified btw.
Reply

o malagabay says:
May 16, 2016 at 01:38

Terra Preta is very interesting But so are the other Black Soils more tomorrow.
 See: https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/philip-callahan-paramagnetism/
Reply

Louis Hissink says:

May 16, 2016 at 23:28

Its the pottery shards throughout this dark-earth that are the puzzle, whether South
America or Europe. The implication is the smashing of pots and what nots into millions
of fragments, then mixing it with carbonised soil. The WWII bombing of Dresden etc, or
the scorched earth policies of the time might have produced the start of this process.

A puzzle indeed.
2. CW says:
May 16, 2016 at 20:29

Dark Earth is an extraordinary substance that provokes an allergic reaction in Earth

Scientists which results in coughing, fidgeting and incoherent mumbling. Bravo! The
laird of MalagaBay at the top of his game!
Reply
3. Pingback: Black Earth: Chernozem | MalagaBay

4. CW says:
May 17, 2016 at 03:46

The implication seems to be a massive fire catastrophe that carbonized huge quantities
of biomass, followed by a water/tsunami catastrophe that smashed pottery and swept
everything into the dark earth deposits we see today. The video on Terra Preta deposits
in Brazil presents testimony that dark earth is constantly renewing itself. This statement
strikes me as fanciful.
Reply

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