Dark Earth deposits immediately overlie late Roman urban stratigraphy across northwestern Europe, representing the crucial but poorly documented collapse of provincial Roman urbanism. Deficient in artifacts, they have proved recalcitrant to traditional methods of archaeological interpretation. The optimal approach to scientific archaeology includes the application of a wide range of geoanalytical techniques to the finer-grained matrices that enclose (or, more precisely, grade into) artifacts in archaeological sequences. As this multifaceted approach is time-consuming, deposits chosen for analysis should contain potential answers to profound historical questions. Comparative studies are necessary, in which samples of known age, provenance, environment, and mode of deposition outnumber those of a more equivocal nature. This case study outlines the relative merits of analyses for fabric orientation, particle size, micromorphology, bulk geochemistry (ICP), particle geochemistry (microprobe), heavy mineralogy, plant remains (pollen, phytoliths, wood), animal remains, macroscopic artifacts, and radiometric dating. The resulting large bodies of data are best summarized by multivariate analyses (notably ordination algorithms), together with semivariograms for spatial data.