Archaeological sequence

The archaeological sequence or sequence for short, on a specific archaeological site can be defined on two levels of rigour.

1. Normally it is adequate to equate it to archaeological record. However, the two terms are not exactly interchangeable. The term 'Archaeological record' is broader in its meaning and can be applied to artifacts and other evidence such as Biofacts and Manuports as well as to the stratigraphy of a site. Also, the terms Archaeological sequence and Archaeological stratigraphy are closely related and somewhat interchangeable. These colloquial uses of the term are normal in conversation but:
2. The term 'sequence' when narrowly defined, and used in a serious piece of writing, refers to the stratigraphy of a given site or any discrete part of the archaeological record as revealed by stratification. It is a succession of Archaeological contexts, such that the relationships between them create the sequence chronologically by virtue of their stratigraphic relationships. In other words, the events causing the stratigraphic contexts to be deposited happened one after another, in an order which can be determined from study of the several contexts. It is this sequence of events which is the archaeological sequence.

See also

• Archaeological record
• Archaeological field survey
• Archaeological context
• Archaeological plan
• Archaeological association
• Relationship (archaeology)
• Cut (archaeology)
• Archaeological section
• Feature (archaeology)
• Single context recording
• Harris matrix
• Excavation (archaeology)
• Dating methodology (archaeology)
• Reverse stratigraphy