Soil age is closely correlated with various factors of pedogenesis and of significant importance to the studies on soil bio-geochemistry,soil environmental change,geological assessment and archaeology. Since soil samples have suffered from very complecated environment conditions and interference factors,the dating studies of soil is more difficult than that on normal archaeological samples. Soilabsolute'dating method involves many sciences,including pedology,geology and archaeology etc.. Currently,soil dating techniques mainly include radioactive isotope dating,luminescence dating,electron spin resonance dating,palaeomagnetic dating and amino acid racemization dating etc.. This paper summarized,compared and discussed the principles and research progress on these methods. Radioactive isotope dating had a wide range of optional elements,soil materials and time scales. Luminescence dating and electron spin resonance method with a relative long time scale were used to determine the quartz minerals in the soil: Amino acid racemic dating was suitable for soils with higher organic matter content. Soil rich in magnetic minerals could be used for the paleomagnetic dating,the method had a longer time scale. In order to evaluate the soil age more accurately,it was believed that the soil dating method should be selected on the basis of soil clay minerals and organic matter with physical and chemical characteristics,and the soil age could be evaluated integratedly by various methods. Moreover,these soil dating methods could provide strong evidences for soil genesis,climate change and long-term C and N cycle research.