THE IDENTIFICATION OF A BURIED PALEOSOL DEVELOPED IN PLACE AT PITSTONE, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Summary A small scarp foot valley cut in blocky Coombe rock contained three layers of calcareous material which had been washed into it, the middle one of which was soil material. Mineralogical analyses showed that there was a lithological discontinuity immediately beneath the soil material but not above it. It seemed possible that there had been a complete inversion of soil horizons by successive erosion phases upslope and deposition in the valley bottom. Micromorphological analyses showed that the particular arrangement of soil fabric in three profiles due to decalcification, gleying, and the reorganization of clay plasma varied logically according to slope position and inferred water regimes. The soil, although thin, had been developed in place. Charcoal flakes from the soil gave a radiocarbon date of 3910±220 years BP. The material that buried the soil is a combination of slopewash and ploughwash initiated by man's clearance and cultivation of the land begun in the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age.