In the UK and western Europe the driving force behind the adoption of 
the Harris matrix was the growth from the late 60s in digging deep 
open-area urban excavations and the increasing problems of writing them 
up. Many of the principals were there in the evolving Wheeler-Kenyon 
style of excavation but there was a move away from sections as open area 
excavation (adopted from Danish rural excavations) became the norm. The 
scale of urban excavtions in deeply startified European towns also meant 
there was an increasing  logistical problem in analysing and presenting 
large statigraphic sequences. The great thing about the Harris matrix is 
that its so systematic, objective and visual and can encompass a whole 
site's strat even if 1000s of layers but at its base is a simple set of 
very basic relationships. Its a bit like computers, people did do things 
before they existed but they make life so much simpler you can't imagine 
going back. The mega cut backs of staff at the Museum of London's 
archaeology service in the late 1980s helped spread the system westward 
on to the Continent but its useage gets rarer as one goes eastward and 
digging by arbitarary spit more common..


paul

ain Stuart wrote:

>When I first visited America in the 1990's I attended the SHA conference at Cincinnati and found much to my surprise the Harris matrix referred to as a novelty in a works shop on urban archaeology. I thought it was a subtle joke, but I was wrong it was real. I remember Adrian Pretzellis introducing me to Ed Harris later that day and they both explained why it wasn't a humerous joke.  
>
>I cannot understand why Harris's work on stratigraphy is properly taught and why it isn't seen as best archaeological practice. The concepts are not particularly difficult (except perhaps negative interfaces) and clearly stem from Wheeler's criticism of the practice of stratigraphic recording.
>
>Surely the basic archaeological tools are plans and stratigraphic sections, as they provide the context for the things (artefacts and other evidence) we excavate. 
>
>Harris's work is a fundamental insight into the issue of stratigraphy and the adaptation of the Harris matrix concept to building archaeology by the late Martin Davies is an important approach to integrating built structures into archaeological remains. 
>
>I don't think what colour pencil to use in recording stratigraphy is much of an issue.
> 
>Iain Stuart
>
>[log in to unmask]
>  
>