Disentangling: the matrix

Giorgio Buccellati – October 2025

Archaeology at the core

These two images illustrate the complexity of the process which we call "disentangling." The image to the right shows a succession of strata which correspond to a time period of a millennium.
The image below highlights the contrast between the number of people and activities involved and the care with which the "matrix" must be confronted. Each orange 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 the most careful extraction procedure.

The grammar

The grammar gives us the tools for translating this complex physical record into a "known" referential record.
Below we will briefly describe the nature of the grammatical approach.

PROCESS CONTEXT METHOD
2.
Acquiring
knowledge Disentangling the matrix Stratigraphy
Space:
   Emplacement
   Volumetry
Time:
   Deposition
   Chronometry

Process: disentangling

Along with re-structuring, this is the one epistemic process that is exclusively found in archaeology. Stratigraphic analysis of cultural deposits, a method that is proper to no other discipline,¹ …

For the most part, 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.

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

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 for the most part not intentional.

Context: the matrix

In their original state, data are disengaged from the soil which acts as the amorpohus matrix in which the “things” are found. They came to rest there as the result of multiple cultural and natural forces, and often over very long periods of time.

In a few 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 with a pit. These aggregates may be seen as portions of the otherwise disaggregate universe as it is uncovered by the excavation (see, e. g., a burial out of 29 aggregates in unit A16).

Method: stratigraphy

There are static and dynamic aspects of statigraphic analysis, all relating to the way in which the relationship the data have with each other in the ground:

the static aspect falls under the heading of “emplacement”: it identifies and documents the pristine fragments as found in the matrix;
the dynamic aspect falls under the heading of deposition: it infers from the locational analysis of the fragments how they have gotten to be there.

For more details see in the section on Principles.

Notes

¹^ In a broad sense, there are of course found a number of stratigraphies, especially geology. Catuneanu 2026 discusses them in detail, but, interestingly, he does not include archaeology. Given the nature of the context, hopwever, archaeological stratirgaphy may rightly be said to be one of a kind.