In einer eMail vom 19.06.98 09:48:28 MEZ, schreiben Sie:
 
<< one of the niftyest elements of the matrix is that it
 doesn't involve the use of finds--at least initially--to examine your site.
 An unannotated matrix is an non-historical description of site structure.
 It does not involve itself with the manufacturing dates of pots or other
 artifacts (or artefacts, if you'd rather, Geoff) or whether the site is in
 Ireland or Oz. As Harris wisely points out, archaeological site structure
 is repetitive and predictable, and thus is amenable to this sort of
 analysis. It is the history of particular sites that varies from place to
 place.
 
 Regards to all in HISTARCH land.
 
 Adrian Praetzellis
 Sonoma State University
 
Hello  Adrian,
 
Exactly that!!!!
 
It doesn't matter "whether the site is in Ireland or Oz", in fact it doesn't
have to be a site at all. What this is all about is relative chronology which
is a non-historical phenomenen and inherent to any composite construct whether
it be fixed and complicated or transitory and simple: perhaps a cathedral or a
whole town or a modern automobile on the one hand or the food on a plate on a
table on the other. The Harris Matrix is a tool for displaying and analysing
this relative chronology and whilst it is true that it was develped in an
archaeological context, the primary question is not whether the Harris Matrix
able to display archaeological stratification adequately, but whether it can
display relative chronology adequately and be used to analyse it. It can.
It "simply" formalises the concept of relative chronology into a cogent system
which is unique in its ability to DISPLAY it and,  perhaps most importantly,
it emphasisies the difference between immediate spacial (interface) and (what
for the want of a better term I'll call) non-spacial relative chronology.
 
The plates on the table make a nice example:
 
                           Plate 1                  Plate 2
                               |                         |
                               ---------------------------
                                           |
                                        Table
 
Points of contact (interfaces) between plates and table extant, no points of
contact between plate 1 and plate 2.
Situation is: table first, plates second. No information as to time of placing
the plates on the table in relation to each other, and no way of getting it
without resorting to other means than the simple observation of the table and
plates - like say, asking the person who set the table. If you can find that
person, there is a chance of placing the plates in a relative chronological
relationship to each other. Possible answers might be: "I put plate 1 there
first", I put plate 2 there first", "I put them both there at the same time",
" I don't know". Questions you might ask yourself are "Is this person telling
the truth?" or "Can I trust this person's memory?"  If the answer to the both
these questions is yes, then any one of the answers given by the table-setter
give enough information to place the plates in the correct chronological
position relative to each other. It the Table setter answers "I put plate 2
on the table 19 seconds before plate 1" you're getting towards historical
chronology but your not there yet. You know the time span between these two
events, but you can't fix them in history -as you would be able to if she/he
answered "I put plate 2 on the table at twenty to six this morning and plate
one 19 seconds later".
 
Putting some food into one of the plates shows that relative chronology and
historical chronology can even be at direct odds with each other. The
observabe relative chronological situation is clear and irrefutable:
 
                                             Food
                                                |
                                             Plate
                                                |
                                             Table
 
and cannot be changed even if the history is different i.e.: 18.06.98, 18:15h
food put on plate; 18:17h table carried from living room to dining room;
18:18h plate with food in it (no longer quite so hot as it should be) put on
table.
 
The Harris Matrix is about relative chronology - it is constructed of the
"interfaces" between units that have immediate spacial and chronological
contacts, and is a powerful tool for the analysis of the relative
chronological relations spacially separated units.
 
In archaeological terms "asking the table setter" can be translated into
"injecting historical data" into the Matrix and thus starting to tell the
historical story. But the Harris matrix itself is a tool or method for
displaying and analysing direct and indirect relative chronology,  phenomena
which exist indepentently of archaeology, but which it is essential to come to
grips with to  understand the complexity of stratigraphic theory.
 
David I. Bibby