Archaeological Stratigraphy — Stratigraphic Excavation and Sequence Analysis

Archaeological stratigraphy is the systematic excavation and recording of soil layers, deposits, and features at an archaeological site in order to establish the relative chronological sequence of human activity. Grounded in the geological law of superposition — that lower layers are older than those above — it uses the Harris Matrix as a formal tool to map depositional relationships and reconstruct site history layer by layer.