Traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) has become a widely used concept in theory and practice. TEK encompasses environmental knowledge acquired by people native to, or long‐term inhabitants of, specific places, over long periods of time; knowledge which is then assumed to apply only to those local areas. TEK has indeed been particularly characterised as a use of local knowledge in the search for solutions to specific, local, environmental problems. Critics of TEK may then argue that it is not based on a strong conceptual framework, and accordingly it cannot be generalised. However, different local practices, which produced analogous outcomes elsewhere, may share common features; moreover, they may be based on general principles behind local ecological knowledge. This is despite the fact that empirical knowledge on specific areas is perceived as local by the producers themselves, and is regarded as local by scientific researchers. The purpose of this paper is to explore some potential general principles that undergird the local component of TEK by focusing on the TEK of soils and geomorphology. We focus on TEK's local dimension; we explore the extent of the local by looking for analogous TEK practices in different, contrasting regions. First we report on local agricultural and land management techniques in the North Atlantic Islands, following their occupation by the pre‐historic Norse migration c. 800 AD up to 1200 AD. Then we discuss how the findings from that time period exhibit general principles regarding soil and geomorphic TEK that occurs in other parts of the world and time periods. We conclude by putting forward potential implications for generalities about TEK.