A Hybrid Evolutionary Approach to Solving the Archaeological Seriation Problem

A general problem confronting archaeologists is the seriation (or sequence-dating) problem. Sir W.M. Flinders Petrie, a famous archeologist, was the first to formulate this interesting and important problem in mathematical terms almost one hundred years ago. The problem of trying to chronologically order grave sites in a cemetery where each grave contains (or does not contain) a number of different stylistic artifacts (e.g., pottery, jewelry, etc.) of a period is called the Petrie Seriation Problem. We have propose an order based hybrid evolutionary modified life cycle model to solve this problem that we believe has many advantages over previously proposed solution strategies.