【Objective】In this paper, two soil profiles at the Yangshao Village cultural relic site of Henan Province, one with obvious evidence of ancient human activities (cultural profile in short) and the other free of any ancient human disturbance (natural profile in short), were chosen for comparison. 【Method】 Through observation and analysis, the two profiles were compared in content of relics, physical and chemical properties and plant remain in an attempt to identify indicative characteristics of the soil in ancient human cultural sites. 【Result】Results show that the cultural profile was found to have some pottery shards, stone wares, ash pits, ash layers and cultural layers; its particle size composition tended to be sandy with sand content, on average, being 1.38 times as high as that in the natural profile and peaking up to 294 g kg^-1 in the ash layer; its average and variation coefficient of low frequency magnetic susceptibility（χ_lf）was 1.15 and 1.96 times, respectively, that of the natural profile with an abnormal peak of χ_lf appearing in Transition layer II, reaching up to 705.51×10^-8 m³ kg^-1; its average and variation coefficient of frequency-dependent magnetic susceptibility（χ_fd）was 0.99 and 0.78 times that of the natural profile, being obviously slightly lower than the latter; its average of redness (a*), yellowness（b*）and lightness（L*）was 0.83, 0.90 and 1.09, respectively, that of the natural profile; its variation coefficient of a*, b* and L* was 2.72, 2.83 and 0.97, respectively, that of natural profile; its a*, b* and L* fell down the bottom in the ash layer, being 2.45, 5.82 and 22.68, respectively; its average and variation coefficient of bulk density was 0.88 and 3.78 times, respectively, that of the natural profile; its bulk density was the lowest in the cultural layer, being 0.79 g cm^-3 , and higher than 1.00 g cm^-3 in all the other layers; its average and variation coefficient of total phosphorus was 4.95 and 1.18 times, respectively, that of the natural profile; its TP peaked in the ash and cultural layers up to 8734 mg kg^-1and 9879.6 mg kg^-1, respectively; The average content of Gramineae and Artemisia remains, including phytolith of setaria italic, panicum miliaceum, oryza sativa, was 2.56 and 1.27 times that of the natural profile; its δ¹³C tended to be more positive than the other’s; its indicative plants were dominated with C4; and its average content of carbon dust was 4.02 times that of the natural profile. 【Conclusion】Based on the above-listed findings, it is found that the soil under the influence of ancient human activities is apparently different from natural soils macroscopically in intrusive body and profile morphological; its main macro indicative feature is the existence of abundant relics, while its micro ones are being higher than natural soil in variation coefficients of particle size composition, magnetic susceptibility, chroma, total phosphorus, and bulk density, sandy in particle size composition, higher inχ_lf, slightly lower inχ_fd, lower in chroma, higher in total phosphorus, and lower in bulk density; the content and types of pollen and phytolith it contains are also different from those a natural soil has;, for instance, the former has rich Gramineae andArtemisia pollens and phytoliths identified to be of setaria italic, panicum miliaceum and oryza sativa. In addition, its content of carbon dust is higher with δ¹³C tending to be more positive.