It's all a matter of perspective. When I was little I played in the dirt, now I plant in the soil. As and archaeologist, I would imagine you mainly saw a material that needed to be gotten out of the way to get to the objects you wanted to find, so to you it's just dirt. To a gardener it is so much more. As Dave said "Soil is that gloriously living growing medium for our plants." From our perspective, we see what is in the ground as a whole. We see the lifeless minerals and organic materials, along with the living organisms that are all important for the purpose of growing plants.
