Narrative Provenance
Physical archaeologists rely on stratigraphy—the study of rock layers (strata)—to understand the timeline of a site. Lower layers are older; disruptions indicate events like floods or fires. In digital archaeology, we apply this same logic to the "Technology Stack."
Digital artifacts are not monoliths; they are sedimentary. To preserve a tweet, a blog post, or a video without its surrounding layers is to preserve a fossil without its rock matrix—you lose the context that gives it meaning.
The Five Layers of Digital Stratigraphy
Every digital ecosystem is composed of at least five distinct strata:
1. Content (The Surface Layer)
What the user sees: the text of the post, the image, the video file. This is the "artifact" in its simplest form. Most amateur archivists stop here, which is why their archives often fail to convey meaning.
2. Metadata (The Context Layer)
The timestamp, the user ID, the view count, the geolocation tags. Metadata anchors the artifact in time and space. Without metadata, a digital object floats in a void.
3. Relationships (The Social Layer)
The reply chain, the follower graph, the retweets, the "remixes." Digital artifacts are rarely solitary; they exist in conversation with others. Preserving the relationship graph is often harder than preserving the content itself.
4. Affordances (The Infrastructure Layer)
The constraints and possibilities of the platform. Why is this video 6 seconds long? Because it's from Vine. Why is this thought fragmented? Because of the 140-character limit. Preserving the *rules* of the platform is essential to understanding the content created within it.
5. Code (The Base Layer)
The HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and database schemas that render the experience. This is the bedrock. When the code rots, the upper layers collapse.
Field Notes
The Looter's Error: Extracting only Layer 1 (Content) is the digital equivalent of looting a tomb for gold while destroying the murals and pottery. It saves the "treasure" but destroys the history.
Temporal Stratigraphy: Unlike physical strata which are laid down over centuries, digital strata can shift overnight (e.g., a platform update changing the character limit). A rigorous Stratigraphic Analysis tracks these changes over time.