A written description of what the data represents might help us understand the data and perhaps offer a solution to your described problem--assuming one exists.

The best interpretation I could muster from your description is that the data lines:

182    196     777
180    197     777
[download]

Means that artifact 182 was found in a higher(or maybe lower, I couldn't decide?) strata than artifact 196,which in turn was in a higher strata than artifact 777. And that a similar relationship exists between the artifacts in the second line. But although artifacts 196 and 197 where definitely both higher than artifact 777, it does not mean they were both at the same level, nor illustrate anything about their relative depths. Same goes for artifacts 182 and 180.

So from those two lines alone, any of the following (plus many other), relative positionings is possible:

182 180     182    180   182
            180    197   196
196 197     196    182   180
            197    196   197
  777       777    777   777
[download]

I first thought the purpose of the code was to try and 'sort' the artifacts from top to bottom be resolving all the relative positionings, but the form of the output doesn't seem to bear that out. If that were the case, it would appear to put far too many artifacts at one level?

My next thought was that the data indicated a physical overlap in the x/y plane. Ie. That some part of artifact 196 physically overlays some part of artifact 777. And the same for 197.

And that the purpose was to say that all these artifacts were in one part of the dig, (one spatial grouping), and these were grouped in another part of the dig. And there was no overlap between any of the items within those two (or more) groupings.

That seems more likely, but it would be easier to understand if you said up front what the data actually means.