Long-term archaeological data gathering in the southern Netherlands may deliver an unprecedented regionalcomparison that could be exemplary for the Pleistocene sand areas of the Northwest European Plain. On amicro-scale level, it has become clear that Bronze Age (2000–800 BC) and Iron Age (800–12 BC) farmers intensivelyused the landscape, resulting in a relatively dense distribution pattern of settlements all over the ridges andplanes of the cover sand landscape. However, this agricultural use of the landscape—related to the “celtic field”system—led to a process of soil degradation by increased acidification during which Umbric Podzols graduallytransformed into Carbic Podzols that could no longer be used as farmland. According to established “models,”this process of “secondary podzolization” particularly affected those sections of the landscape thatwere dominatedby dry sandy soils with a low loam content (loam = clay and silt, between c. 10% and 20%). In the Late Iron Age(250–12 BC), the changing soil conditions resulted in a dramatic shift in the habitation pattern that clearlymanifestsitself in the Roman period (12 BC–410 AD); on the local scale, the habitation moved from the degenerated soils tonearby areaswith better soil conditions (higher loam content),which became more densely inhabited nowthan intheBronzeAge/EarlyIronAge (2000–500 BC). The introduction of newlandmanagement (in the later Iron Age, andalso by Romans) could also have been important for soil degradation. The areas where the Roman period settlementsconcentrated became also the areas where we can find the early medieval habitation (447–751 AD) andwhere the Plaggic Anthrosols started to develop in the late medieval period (1270–1500 AD). This paper is basedon the analysis of soil properties.Measured loamvalues of soil samples (n=181) in Veldhoven, southern Netherlands, are in agreement with thedescribedmodel that the plaggen cover is located on soils containing high combined silt and clay content (N25%)and that Carbic Podzols with no plaggen cover have low combined silt and clay content (b15%). Local spatial aswell as vertical variations in loam content of sand layers have shown to occur, warning against single parameterresearch. Other potential causes for the deviation of the model are as follows: (a) impact of fluctuating groundwaterlevels; (b) impact of different hydrological properties in the shallow subsurface, depending on the grainsize and transmissivity of the sediments; (c) organic matter content; (d) land management; and (e) climatechange.© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved