Linda Derry schrieb:
 
  We had  Edward Harris  (himself) come and teach us
> about using the "Harris Matrix."
 
we had him by the other weekend for help with some questions we had about our
german translation
 
My thought was that this was a useful
> vehicle to help record and understand the complex stratigraphy  we find in
> urban settings.  Unfortunately, most  of the archaeologists
> present seemed unconvinced.  The primary problem appeared not to be his
> presentation, but the fact that most of them opened up sites in arbitrary
> levels.   Since then, I began to realize that I had grown up
> (archaeologically speaking) in  a very different tradition than my
> colleagues.  This horrified me.  We had been talking apples and oranges all
> along .  My
> reality about what lays beneath the soil is completely different than
> theirs.  Suddenly, I was being ridiculed for seeing soil layers that in
> their minds were impossible to see - except in profile.    And, I sincerely
> believed as Dr. Harris so bluntly put it that day that  "if you can't see
> the layers
> as you dig them, you shouldn't be excavating, then should you? "  (got to
> love him!)
>
problem here in germany (and possibly elsewhere in europe) is that too many
people are still excavating things like medieval town centres using arbitrary
levels!!! they don't know about stratigraphic methods because they only know
what their professors told them, and the professors only know about profiles and
 
plans a la Mortimer Wheeler
 
> So, my question is, what's going on here?   How, widespread is this
> alternative point of view in the U.S.    Dig first, figure it out later in
> the profile.   (I was taught that this was something we Americans
> outgrew).  Or have I led a sheltered life and I'm actually holding the
> alternative view?  ( hey, even the sane person  can begin to question his
> saneness when living in a mental ward.)
>
> Anyway, I'm concerned that regionalization of archaeologists - or
> "inbreeding" between pairs of graduate schools - has created some VERY
> different  excavation approaches  - and the differences are not related to
> research designs but to very different basic understandings  about the very
> nature of the resource.   But we are all pretending the differences don't
> exist.  Anybody have a comment on this.?
>
i'm questioning the division into "classical arky" (essentially art history of
greece/rome), "roman arky", "pre- and protohistory", etc.: no standard body of
method/theory (one director of a state service even denied there was a
difference between english/french/german methods/theory: asked him about
harris/stratigraphic, post-modern/processionalism, etc.: no answer, of course...
 
> Finally,  Let me add that I am very sincere in this posting, so please don't
> abuse me too badly.
>
>
> Linda Derry ([log in to unmask])
> Old Cahawba Archaeological Park
> Alabama Historical Commission
 
http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/
geoff carver
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