M. Jay Stottman wrote:
 
>I think things will gradually change as people begin to
>realize that prehistoric archaeology and historic archaeology are actually
>>quite different and when people specifically trained in
>historic archaeology are more abundant.
 
Even if you don't use the Harris Matrix, concepts associated with it are
powerful tools. In urban sites, these concepts may be your life line to
sanity.
 
Jay is absolutely correct about the orientation problem, and I might add
that the same applies to industrial archaeology as opposed to conventional
historical archaeology. Techniques (analytical or field) are not absolutely
transferrable, even among subspecialties.
 
I can't believe the statement that northeastern U S soils are so difficult
to interpret that natural levels can't be identified in the field and
excavated accordingly. Arbitrary levels might be useful, if the digger
suspects that an apparently uniform deposit has time depth that isn't
obvious; such cases are rare, but you can't dismiss them entirely.
 
 
 
    _____
___(_____)                         Any knowledge is a
|"Baby"  \                         subset of archaeology.
|1969 Land\_===__
|IIA__Rover   ___|o
|_/ . \______/ . ||
___\_/________\_/____________________________________________
Ned Heite, Camden, DE  http://home.dmv.com/~eheite/index.html