I have read Harris' original work back in the 1980's while working on
urban archaeology sites in New York City. I have used it in the
stratigraphic analysis of the Wickers Creek Site, Dobbs Ferry, NY, a
multi-component site with C14 dates from about 4400 BP to the present
on a Hudson River terrace (nearby Westchester County monument "last
village of the Weckqweskecks", who occupied the Bronx, Westchester and
parts of Manhattan, and perhaps in one of the first treaties between
the English and the Dutch on a "reservation" in Nissequogue, a river
of that name near Smithtown, NY Suffolk County, on Long Island, NY to
protect those who survived Governor Kieft's policies, who was
dismissed by the Dutch [source in part: The American Heritage Book of
Indians).

I have worked in archaeology stratigraphic depictions and since the
desktop computer used hatching and other patterns mostly. Other uses
of a color key are also in some reports. My fieldschool lacked any
stratigraphy, except for the scallop shell middens, however the varios
point types found were color keyed in my final diagram to show where
different ages of artifacts were found, on the Mount Sinai Harbor, on
Long Island, NY. I worked in close-range photogrammetry of
stratigraphy, the photos provided the delineations of strata in a
National Superfund Priority clean-up site, the Marathon Battery
Superfund site (contaminated in making nickel-cadmium batteries for
NIKE missiles) in the West Point Foundry Cove in Cold Spring, NY,
across the Hudson River from the West Point Military Academy.

There hand-scanned the hand-drawn profiles transferred from graphic to
vectors by Corel, then imported into AutoCad and joined with other
drawings (some from the 3D close range photogrammetry "traced" from
photos [Rollei]) and saved in a computer 3D model in State Plane
Coordinates, though projected in traditional profiles, which exported
into a graphics program were colored (filled) and shaded for the
reports on structures examined in the impacts planned (circa
1990-1993).

Back in 1978, in the NPS Denver Service Center at national historic
sites, (Fort McHenry, Hopewell Village Foundry, Allegheny Portage
Railroad, Moore Cabin Skagway, Alaska, William Floyd Manor, Mastic,
NY) colored pencil was optional. Every change in layer or level by the
excavator required one color and one B&W photo.

George Myers

Interesting visual program like matrices: IHMC Cmap Tools