Stratigraphic Graphs

In aion: Archaeological Time Series

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
collapse = TRUE,
comment = "#>"
)

library(aion)
library(igraph)

A stratigraphic graph represents the directed relationships between temporal units (archaeological deposits), from the most recent to the oldest (Harris 1997). It can be formally defined as a directed acyclic graph (DAG), in which each vertex represents a layer and the edges represent stratigraphic relations.

From an edge matrix

At the most basic level, stratigraphic relations can be captured in a two-column matrix (or data.frame) of edges, where each row represents a relation element.

## Harris 1997, fig. 12
harris <- data.frame(
  X = c(1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8),
  Y = c(2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9)
)

This table of relations can then be used to create a graph. Note that these relations are to be read from the top of the stratigraphic sequence to the bottom ("X is above/later than Y"), but the reverse is possible by changing the direction argument in graph_create().

## Create a graph object
g <- graph_create(harris, direction = "above", type = "stratigraphy")

Multiple edges and loop edges may need to be removed, as well as redundant relations (by transitive reduction):

## Remove redundant relations
g <- graph_prune(g)

Finally, the graph can be plotted with an appropriate layout:

plot(g, layout = layout_with_sugiyama)

From time intervals

A stratigraphic graph can also be used to represent temporal relations (posteriority) within a set of time intervals:

## Seven time intervals expressed in years CE
int <- intervals(
  start = c(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 13, 17),
  end = c(7, 4, 15, 14, 11, 18, 19),
  calendar = CE(),
  names = c("A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F", "G")
)

## Create a stratigraphic graph
strati <- graph_create(int, type = "stratigraphy")

## Remove redundant relations
strati <- graph_prune(strati)

Equivalence relations (i.e. at least partial contemporaneity) can also be represented with an interval graph:

## Create an interval graph
inter <- graph_create(int, type = "interval")

These two graphs therefore capture all temporal relations:

## Stratigraphic graph
plot(strati, layout = layout_with_sugiyama)

## Interval graph
plot(inter)

References {.unnumbered}

Harris, Edward C., 1997. Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy. Seconde edition. Academic Press.

aion documentation built on Nov. 5, 2025, 6:03 p.m.