An archaeological relationship is the position in space and by implication, in time, of an object or context

Archaeological context

In archaeology, not only the context of a discovery is a significant fact, but the formation of the context is as well. An archaeological context is an event in time which has been preserved in the archaeological record. The cutting of a pit or ditch in the past is a context, whilst the material...

 with respect to another. This is determined, not by linear measurement but by determining the sequence of their deposition - which arrived before the other. The key to this is stratigraphy.

Stratigraphic relationships

Archaeological material would, to a very large extent, have been called rubbish when it was left on the site. It tends to accumulate in events. A gardener swept a pile of soil into a corner, laid a gravel path or planted a bush in a hole. A builder built a wall and back-filled the trench. Years later, someone built a pig sty onto it and drained the pig sty into the nettle patch. Later still, the original wall blew over and so on. Each event, which may have taken a short or long time to accomplish, leaves a context, a deposit of material, on the site. This deposit and its relationship to earlier contexts may show up in section

Archaeological section

In archaeology a section is a view in part of the archaeological sequence showing it in the vertical plane, as a cross section, and thereby illustrating its profile and stratigraphy. This may make it easier to view and interpret as it developed over time....

 or in plan when viewed from above.

When there are hundreds of these relationships, a formal method of keeping track of them is required. An effective method is to prepare a Harris matrix

Harris matrix

The Harris matrix is a tool used to depict the temporal succession of archaeological contexts and thus the sequence of deposition on a 'dry land' archaeological site. The matrix reflects the relative position and stratigraphic contacts of observable stratigraphic units, or contexts. The Matrix was...

. Their position in the matrix places the contexts in their sequence in time. Provided the archaeologist has maintained a record of the context in which each artefact was found, the tracing of the contexts by the matrix does equally well for the artefacts (objects).

Types of relationship

Terminology in archaeology is not definitive but the following are typical uses of terms:

1. Cuts: A context is said to cut another context if the former's creation removed a part of the latter. For example a ditch cut
   Cut (archaeology)
   In Archaeology and archeological stratification a cut or truncation is a context that represents a moment in time when other archaeological deposits were removed for the creation of some feature such as a ditch or pit...
   
   , cuts all the contexts that made up the ground the ditch was dug into. Reciprocally, a context may be said to be cut by another.
2. Overlies: A context is said to overlie another when the overlying context is later in time and makes physical contact with the earlier context.
3. Above: A context is said to be above another if created later and, in general, vertically above the other context but not necessarily in physical contact. The description holds even when they are not aligned vertically, if one and the same intervening context lies both below the higher and above the lower.
4. Below: A context is said to be below another context if it was created earlier and in general is vertically below the other context but not necessarily in physical contact. The description holds even when they are not aligned vertically, if one and the same intervening context lies both below the higher and above the lower.
5. Butts: A context "butts up to" or "abuts" another context when it was created later and contacts the other but in general does not have a vertical physical relationship "above". An example would be a clay floor laid up to the vertical face of an already existing wall.
6. Contemporary with. a context may be different but formed in the sequence at the same time. an example of this would be a body in a coffin was already in the coffin when the two where fixed in the sequence. arguments concerning that the skeleton went into the coffin afterwards are based on knowledge of what constituted the formation of the sequence offsite. Is the body created at death or birth? anomalies like this show up the limitations of the stratigraphic sequencing of human made deposits
7. Same as. A context upon further investigation may be discovered to the same one another context but assigned different context numbers in error

A relationship that is later in the sequence is sometimes referred to as "higher" in the sequence

Sequence (archaeological)

The archaeological sequence or sequence for short, on a specific archaeological site can be defined on two levels of rigour.# Normally it is adequate to equate it to archaeological record. However, the two terms are not exactly interchangeable...

 and a relationship that is earlier "lower" though the term higher or lower does not itself imply a context needs to be physically higher or lower. It is more useful to think of this higher or lower term as it relates to the contexts position in a Harris matrix

Harris matrix

The Harris matrix is a tool used to depict the temporal succession of archaeological contexts and thus the sequence of deposition on a 'dry land' archaeological site. The matrix reflects the relative position and stratigraphic contacts of observable stratigraphic units, or contexts. The Matrix was...

 which is a two dimensional representation of a sites formation in space and time.

See also

• Archaeological context
  Archaeological context
  In archaeology, not only the context of a discovery is a significant fact, but the formation of the context is as well. An archaeological context is an event in time which has been preserved in the archaeological record. The cutting of a pit or ditch in the past is a context, whilst the material...
  
  
• Archaeological plan
  Archaeological plan
  An archaeological plan in an archaeological excavation, is a drawn record of features in the horizontal plane.- Overview :Archaeological plan can either take the form of...
  
  
• Archaeological association
  Archaeological association
  Association in archaeology has more than one meaning and is confusing to the layman. Archaeology has been critiqued as a soft science with a somewhat poor standardization of terms.-Finds and objects:...
  
  
• Fill (archaeology)
  Fill (archaeology)
  In archaeology fills are contexts representing material that has accumulated or has been deposited into a cut feature such as ditch or pit of some kind...
  
  
• Alignment (archaeology)
  Alignment (archaeology)
  An alignment in archaeology is a secondary or circumstantial form of evidence used to associate features such as postholes by virtue of their physical relationships rather than stratigraphic ones...
  
  
• Cut (archaeology)
  Cut (archaeology)
  In Archaeology and archeological stratification a cut or truncation is a context that represents a moment in time when other archaeological deposits were removed for the creation of some feature such as a ditch or pit...
  
  
• Archaeological section
  Archaeological section
  In archaeology a section is a view in part of the archaeological sequence showing it in the vertical plane, as a cross section, and thereby illustrating its profile and stratigraphy. This may make it easier to view and interpret as it developed over time....
  
  
• Archaeological phase
  Archaeological phase
  Archaeological phase and phasing refers to the logical reduction of contexts recorded during excavation to near contemporary archaeological horizons that represent a distinct "phase" of previous land use. These often but not always will be a representation of a former land surface or occupation...
  
  
• Feature (archaeology)
  Feature (archaeology)
  Feature in archaeology and especially excavation has several different but allied meanings. A feature is a collection of one or more contexts representing some human non-portable activity that generally has a vertical characteristic to it in relation to site stratigraphy. Examples of features are...
  
  
• Single context recording
  Single context recording
  Single context recording was initially developed by Ed Harris and Patrick Ottaway in 1976, from a suggestion by Lawrence Keene. It was further developed by the Department of Urban Archaeology from where it was then exported, in the mid 1980s by Pete Clarke to the Scottish Urban Archaeological...
  
  
• Harris matrix
  Harris matrix
  The Harris matrix is a tool used to depict the temporal succession of archaeological contexts and thus the sequence of deposition on a 'dry land' archaeological site. The matrix reflects the relative position and stratigraphic contacts of observable stratigraphic units, or contexts. The Matrix was...