European urban dark earth investigations have aided our understanding of Late Roman and early medieval populations and their activities. Deposits from two locations below Exeter Cathedral were compared in a geoarchaeological study and contrasting uses of space were identified. This supports the need for case-by-case investigations of urban deposits.

Biała Góra 3 is a small settlement founded in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century AD in the disputed Christian borderlands of Northern Europe. The incorporation of Pomerania into the Polish state in the tenth century was followed by a process of colonisation across the lower Vistula valley, which then stalled before resuming in the thirteenth century under the Teutonic Order. Biała Góra 3 is unusual in falling between the two expansionist phases and provides detailed insight into the ethnicity and economy of this borderland community. Pottery and metalwork show strong links with both Pomeranian and German colonists, and caches of bricks and roof tiles indicate durable buildings of the kind associated with the monastic and military orders. Evidence for the presence of merchants suggests Biała Góra 3 was one of many outposts in the commercial network that shadowed the Crusades.

A recent workshop on ‘dark earth’, the homogeneous soil layer that often separates Roman from Early Medieval and Medieval strata in towns, prompted the authors to show how this concept, which developed in England, became altered when employed in mainland Europe. They present new research on what is actually a widespread phenomenon, and warn that uncritical assumptions about such layers made on the ground are losing important information.