Abstract
Only few known Holocene soils were in global scale developed without the human impact. The landscape of Central Europe has been strongly influenced by the human presence already since prehistory, but the intensity of the human participation to the soil development is still not very clear.
During the last few decades a new term appeared in archaeological terminology; the term "dark earth". This term does not fully correspond to a soil classification name (e.g., in soil taxonomy, FAO/WRB, etc.) nor should it imply a univocal archaeological interpretation.
It is used in substitution for other terms present in older references and and it is pointing to the black coloured soil of nonidentifial origin. Dark earth indicates dark-coloured, humic, and poorly stratified units, often formed over several centuries, frequently rich in anthropogenic remains (brick, mortar, tile, charcoal, bone, pottery, etc.) observed in urban contexts.
Despite the fact that the understanding soil development has been a crucial issue for soil scientists ever since, until now we have not fully understood all the links between climatic and human impact on soils and the complexity of dark earth processes has neither been explained thoroughly. Comparison studies between buried soils and recent soils may answer the questions con- nected with the past soil environment as well as the questions connected with the intensity of anthropogenic impact.
The type of human impact on the dark earth development may illustrate for example the type and the intensity of prehistoric agricultural processes, the formation processes of archaeological sites, as well as the possible climatic impact on the human behaviour connected with the agriculture. In the paper we would like to focus on the question of dark earth development in the conditions of the Central Europe and Holocene climate and human impact.