Inspired by the success of published research on the use of simple models to quantify the cycling of organic carbon in soils, this paper investigates the idea of using a simple two-component carbon cycling model to describe the rate of decay of archaeological organic matter, using waterlogged wood as an example. By assuming that the lignin forms a ‘slow’ carbon pool, and the cellulose and hemicelluloses can be combined into a ‘fast’ pool, rate constants are estimated for anaerobic decay from data given in the soil carbon cycling literature. By converting the predicted rates of decay of these two pools into relative proportions of ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ pools remaining in the wood as a function of time, the model is tested against the limited chemical data available in the waterlogged wood literature. A ‘best fit’ between model and data suggests that under anaerobic conditions the rate constants for waterlogged wood are k s = 0.0002 y −1 and k f = 0.005 y −1 . There appears to be sufficient correspondence between model and data to suggest that the approach proposed is plausible and worth pursuing for archaeological wood as well as a wider range of other organic materials.