China is a country with a vast territory and a huge variety of soil types. The soils of China contain not only
organic matter
and humus but also plenty of disperse carbonate, calcareous concretions, or shell and coral etc., which are good objects suitable for
radiocarbon dating.\;Quite a number of types soils have been dated, belonging to 12 orders: Histosols, Anthrosols, Spodsols, Vertisols, Aridsols, Halosols, Gleysols, Isohumisols, Ferrisols, as well as Luvisols, Cambisols and Entisols. Authors place emphasis on radiocarbon dates of
organic matter and humus composition in chestnut soils (Isohumisols order), calcareous concretions and disperse carbonate in shajiang black soils and swelling clay soils (Vertisols order), and shell coral in the soils in South China Sea Islands (belonging in Isohumisols, Halosols and Entisols respectively).\;Organic and inorganic 14 C dates show that most soils in China are products of Holocene, with those of the late and mid Holocene in dominance. The soil ages of Stagnic and Orthic Anthrosols are closely related to the long agricultural history of China of more than 6 000 years. Comparatively, only a few soils formed at the end of the late Pleistocene. And some soils have several formation and development phases. Therefore, their ages, spanning different geological periods, have polygenetic features.\;