A Grammar of the Archaeological Record (Version 2, Beta release)

Disentangling the matrix. Stratigraphy

Principles of stratigraphic analysis

Giorgio Buccellati – August 2009, May 2026

The grammatical approach

Epistemics gives us the tools for translating the complex physical record into a “known” referential record.

As with the rest of the grammar, our approach rests on the three venues of process, context an method – which are briefly described below with regard to stratigraphy.

PROCESS CONTEXT METHOD
1.
Acquiring
knowledge Disentangling the matrix Stratigraphy
Space:
   Emplacement
   Volumetry
Time:
   Deposition
   Chronometry

Context: the matrix

An amorphous mass

     When approaching a set of cultural remains that have been abandoned and have collapsed over time, we face an amorphous matrix, a congeries of loose material and discrete fragments that came to rest there as the result of multiple cultural and natural forces, and often over very long periods of time.
     The images show this amorphous mass as visible in the cut resulting from the excavation.
     The image below shows a compact soil matrix with individual stones and bricks, and with the impression of other elements that have bee removed.
     The image to the right shows a longer sequence, with even layers in the lower part, indicating the presence of more regular accumulations.

A15v27

A16-gv

A Mesopotamian site like Urkesh is a prime example of this: the collapse process took place over many centuries, and it was a dynamic process which went well beyond simple superposition and resulted from a variety of accretions, intrusions and re-uses. The Arabic word tell, as in “tell Mozan,” and the Kurdish word gir as in “girê Moza,” refer precisely to a hill that is made up of cultural remains.

The process: disentangling

Excavation

Excavation is the process through which we “disentangle”¹ the matrix.

One approach is to extract what are perceived to be important elements within the matrix, without regard for the context. This is a non-archaeological excavation.

A properly archaeological excavation aims to understand and document the way in which every element lays in the ground and then infer from their emplacement how they had come to be where they are, and what their original function was.

Along with re-structuring, this is the one epistemic process that is exclusively found in archaeology. Stratigraphic analysis of cultural deposits is a method that is proper to no other discipline.

The process results in the exposure of elements, and we may distiguish two aspects of this process: horizontal and vertical exposure.

Horizontal exposure

To a large extent, the data as excavated show no structural relationship to each other – i. e., they do not reflect their original functional setting. Their primary definition is thus tied to their findspot and their association with the other elements with which they are in contact.

As a reslt, the “finds” emerge as a mass of disconnected fragments. To “disentangle” means to extricate them as individual pieces from this mass, all the while accounting for the process itself and arguing for the nature of the relationship the fragments have in the mass.

By way of example, the two images below illustrate a given situation. Each orange or yellow ribbon identifies a small nodule of clay which may turn out to be a sealing. They are embedded in the soil in a way that requires a careful extraction procedure. As soon as they are exposed, they are assigned a number and located geo-referentially before being removed individually from the casing in which they are emplaced.

A13v13a

A13

The next two images indicate how one can best visualize a situation not immediately apparent from the remains in the ground. On the left we see a set of charred wooden sticks as originally found during excavation, and on the right as evidenced by new wooden sticks placed where the original ones would have been.

A10v264f: charred wood in A10

A10v264: new wood in place of charred wood

Vertical exposure

A vertical cut through the matrix provides a view into the matrix as it has been exposed, which serves as a visual record of the process. Such a “section” is a standard tool in archaeology.

The two images below show a section consisting of three layers:

f1 is a topsoil, that has accumulated over a period of some three millennia, since the abandonment of the site around 1200 B.C. till present day;
f55 is the decay of the brickfall found in the lower layer f15 – it does not have a sharp boundary with f1, because it was exposed exposed for a long period of time and it merged with the additional material accumulated in successive centuries;
f15 is a massive brickfall from a pre-existing building.


a section through the matrix in unit A16, locus 2 A16v25

Method: analysis

A three pronged approach

unique to archaeology in that it creates its own record

disentangling as part of analys1s (1. excavation)

How to handle the process is the task of method. Stratigraphic analysis includes a variety of methods, each of them dealing with three interrelated aspects:

Excavation. – Handling of the physical evidence – not under method, but only under process? discuss more there
Recording. –
Inference. –

strategy and tactics

chronology and function to semiotics

Stratigraphy

We must go through a series of steps, as follows.

The logical procedure. – On the one hand we must record data as found, and on the other we must infer how they have gotten to be where they are in the ground.
The exposure – The excavation may be either horizontal or vertical. In the first case we approach the data from the top, and either extract or leave in place individual elements, on the basis of ad hoc judgments that must be recorded as part of the strategy and tactics followed; in the second case we cut through the matrix “arbitrarily,” i. e., independently of the material found therein, highlighting the the way in which the elements interact with each other.
The aspect. – The data are seen either statically as they are found in the ground, or dynamically as they can be arranged in time relatively to each other.
The space-time continuum. – See presently.
Four methods – See presently.

This is summarized in the following chart (the color green identifies the categories that are given in the sidebar to the left):

excavation/process/presuppositions

logical/cognition

process method
logical exposure aspect continuum locational dimensional
stratigraphy record horizontal static space emplacement volumetry
inference vertical dynamic time deposition chronometry

Space/time continuum

That space can be translated into time is the basic postulate that underlies the whole process. For instance, having distinguished (through emplacement) two vertical planes as a cut vs. a face (texture, alignment, hardness, etc.), we may argue that a face is contemporary with the element behind it, whereas a cut is subsequent to it.

Four methods are available to deal with the issues just raised,

two dealing with the physical or locational aspects: (1) the identification and documentation of the pristine fragments as found in the matrix (emplacement) and (2) the description of the nature of the contacts among these fragments, from which one can deduct the nature of the deposition;
and two dealing with the dimensional aspect which encases these data in space (volumetry) and in time (chronometry).

Space: emplacement and volumetry

In point of fact, the situation is generally more complex, and, even more importantly, one must more sharply differentiate between the two constitutive aspects of stratigraphy, emplacement and deposition.

These two aspects interact with each other as, respectively, the static and the dynamic moments of one and the same situation. They describe the elements as found in terms of how they relate to each other, in two regards:

emplacement is static because it refers to the collocation of things in the ground.
volumetry dimensions things as they are placed in measurable volumes – in space.

Time: deposition and chronometry

Another fundamental aspect pertains to the way in which we can dimension both emplacement and deposition. This refers to the nature of measurements we can overlay on the data: volumetry and chronometry.

deposition is dynamic because it refers to the process whereby such collocation is inferred to have come into existence.
As such, it deals with time.
chronometry dimensions things as they are are seen to impact each other – in time.

Summary

The following chart summarizes the relative aspects of emplacement and deposition on the one hand, and of volumetry and sequencing on the other (the numbers refer to the order in which they are treated below):

	*static / space*	*dynamic / time*
*descriptive*	1. emplacement: internal characteristics and reciprocal contacts of things as they are in the ground.	3. deposition: inferences about how things have come to be placed where they are.
*dimensioning*	2. volumetry: metric measurements of things in space.	4. chronometry: relative intervals in time.

A full discussion of the concept of stratigraphy as used in the Urkesh Global Record is found in Chapter 5 of the Grammar (cf. also the companion website CAR). Here, only a few key points are summarized to help understand the presentation of the data.

---------------

The system structure

to emplacement ?

The matrix is an amorphous mass, but it contains a number of distinctive structural components which must be identified and processed in the course of the excavation.

Elements: stationary and movable

Elements are the things that are found in the matrix. We will see in typology how these elements can be defined and described. Within the realm of stratigraphic analysis we distinguish two main categories:

stationary elements – their typological identity is tied to a location, and
movable elements – their typological identity is independent of place<.

This distinction is simple enough that it can be applied without hesitation in practically every instance. It is especially useful during the first moment of excavation, when other distinguishing characteristics may not be as apparent, or when specialists may not be present for identification. This is discussed in detail in xxx

Stationary

wall
platfom

Aggregates

In some cases, the original state is preserved, and then we can see the data in their primary functional aggregation. The most obvious case obtains when several walls are seen to constitute a room or a whole building. Another case is that of objects laying on the same floor level, or contained within a pit. These aggregates may be seen as portions of the otherwise disaggregate universe uncovered by the excavation.

Aggregates are “wholes” even if they are incomplete. In this sense, they emerge as structured from the excavations, and they are subjected to further nesting into greater wholes.

Below are the images of two large aggregates from Urkesh, the staircase leading to the great Temple BA and the courtyard of the Royal Palace of Tupkish.

Temple staircase

Palace courtyard A16v146a

Movable

snake jar
andiron
sherd
tablet
sling ball
soil phytoliths for samples

Combinatorial properties

Contacts

The notion of contact presupposes the identification of discrete entities, the elements. The contact is not mere juxtaposition. From various factors, such as texture, alignment of components, organization of planes and volumes, etc., we may plausibly argue for different types of contact. In other words, the clustering is hierarchical, and supports the basic inferences about the depositional process that is to be assumed.

Clustering

Stratigraphic clustering refers to the way in which elements in contact, in the physical space, can be linked so as to denote temporal sequences.

The physical contact is what can in fact be observed and documented. As such it is the starting point of all archaeological analysis. The individual instances of contact are defined as part of emplacement, and are measured as part of volumetry. What lies beyond is the clustering of these points of contacts into groupings that subsume all the pertinent primary observations. From this we derive, in a properly arguable fashion, the depositional process and the overall sequencing.

Strata

The notion of clustering finds its prime realization in the concept of stratum. This is a cluster of elements arranged according to the type of contact, and sorted according to nesting criteria that result in discrete wholes. These wholes are defined by the congruence of the elements in contact (e.g., a series of pits cut into a single accumulation), and by broad elements that extend to an entire volumetric unit (e.g., a floor that covers the entire surface of a locus).

There are three types of contact:

direct – physical contact between elements
indirect – contact mediated by a a third element (e. g., two floors on either side of a wall)
inferential – contact implied by the consonance of various factors, including typological analysis, across larger excavation areas (e. g. elements across several squares within the same unit).

For a detailed example see for now this file.

In the standard approach to archaeological publishing, the stratigraphic record remains by and large ungrammaticalized. The data are understood as a language might be for which no grammar is provided: we have a sense of what the data say, but their integration into a unified conceptual structure is incomplete and inarticulate as far as the .

Casing

The elements are embedded in a loose accretion which is the result of long lasting cultural and natural processes. It may be called a casing in the sense that it envelops the elements. It is generally in the shape of loose soil which may be the result of various events – the collapse of structural elements, such as mud bricks; intentional discard of organic and inorganic material; blowing in of external elements such as sand.

Notes

¹^ The term “entanglement” has recently come to have a specific meaning in archaeology (Jones 2021; Buccellati 2022 Entanglment): it refers to the relationship between humans and things. The meaning that applies here is different. It refers to how things are entangled in the soil as a result of a depositional process that was, to a large extent, not intentional.

	process			method
	logical	exposure	aspect	continuum	locational	dimensional
stratigraphy	record	horizontal	static	space	emplacement	volumetry
stratigraphy	inference	vertical	dynamic	time	deposition	chronometry