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+--- Thread: Is single context recording the only way? (/showthread.php?tid=5229)
Is single context recording the only way? - beamo - 6th March 2014
Looks as if the Harris Matrix has moved on, even if we haven't
http://bermudasun.bm/Content/NEWS/News/Article/The-Harris-Matrix-goes-forensic/24/270/75604
Beamo
Is single context recording the only way? - Dinosaur - 6th March 2014
Hope they'll make better use of it!
Is single context recording the only way? - BAJR - 8th March 2014
Outrageous! Heretic... BURN him! BUrn!!!!!!!!!! Dinosaur!
ahem... never knew he was from Bermuda!
I try and teach people to tell a narrative. so can you tell a complete story based on the layers, deposits cuts and structures. Works for me ( just won't make it to the best seller list. I like the Matrix as it creates ordered thought.
Is single context recording the only way? - Jack - 10th March 2014
A matrix can be a work of art.......with colour coding for dating evidence, annotated with finds.............
I love staring at the matrix, I don't see code anymore.....All I see now is blonde, brunette, redhead.
Is single context recording the only way? - Marc Berger - 11th March 2014
I remember it being called single context planning then as you ran out of permatrace you got to call it multi-context planning and eventually you had a single plan sheet and a lot of sections. As I understand it Harris is now of the opinion that the description of whats between the contexts is where the money is.
Is single context recording the only way? - P Prentice - 11th March 2014
Marc Berger Wrote:I remember it being called single context planning then as you ran out of permatrace you got to call it multi-context planning and eventually you had a single plan sheet and a lot of sections. As I understand it Harris is now of the opinion that the description of whats between the contexts is where the money is.
i too was at that school
Is single context recording the only way? - Marc Berger - 14th March 2014
Considering the application of forensic use of Harris with fires, possibly layers of smoke deposited on the ceiling would create an inverted stratigraphy. just wondered what this could be called : invertedstrat, inverlution, cloudstratigraphy....you heard it here first. Given the short time frame and the wide area of the effects of a fire that need forensic analysis the most obvious problem must be contamination by physical relation. What I wonder, given that the ifa has gone chartered, is whether if you are not a chartered archaeologist you should be allowed to employ Harris's (Harris') matrix....
Is single context recording the only way? - Crocodile - 15th March 2014
Marc Berger Wrote:Considering the application of forensic use of Harris with fires, possibly layers of smoke deposited on the ceiling would create an inverted stratigraphy. just wondered what this could be called : invertedstrat, inverlution, cloudstratigraphy....you heard it here first.
Pretty sure Harris discusses this in Principles, or something similar. He certainly dismisses such concepts as reverse stratigraphy. Surely the stratigraphic principles remain the same, the smoke is later than the paint which is deposited after the plaster. If the ceiling falls in onto the ash of the fire at a later point it is a new deposit which is later than the fire. I don't see what is inverted.
Is single context recording the only way? - kevin wooldridge - 16th March 2014
Crocodile Wrote:Pretty sure Harris discusses this in Principles, or something similar. He certainly dismisses such concepts as reverse stratigraphy. Surely the stratigraphic principles remain the same, the smoke is later than the paint which is deposited after the plaster. If the ceiling falls in onto the ash of the fire at a later point it is a new deposit which is later than the fire. I don't see what is inverted.You are absolutely right Crocodile, but it is as pointless trying to explain technical archaeology to the 'Archaeologist Formerly Known As', as it was trying to explain it to his previous incarnation.....
Is single context recording the only way? - Marc Berger - 18th March 2014
As I have said before Mr Wooldridge I am not who you think I am. I have posted twice on this thread. What have I written which results in a claim that is pointless trying to explain technical archaeology to me.
Although Harris refers to "reverse stratigraphy" he appears to be trying to distance archaeological stratigraphy from geological stratigraphy and the geological examples of folded geology or examples of land slides which result in chunks of stratigraphy being turned upside down. In both geology and archaeology deposits can seemingly form below older deposits -infilling of underground caverns by solution-silting up drains but they don't in the main defy superposition (not sure about stalactites). All I was referring to was the fact that the smoke deposits on a ceiling form downwards and as does the sequence of rafter-plaster, paint, smoke AND that the deposited layers of plaster, layers of paint, layers of smoke also form downwards which is counter to superposition. Now you can throw these deposits into Harris matrix but I am unaware of a convention that expresses both these characteristic's in Harris matrix other than the use of interpretation which I imagine would result in a matrix where the flow (? how about "edge") lines must come out of the bottom of the rafter context and turn upwards to the plaster then the paint and then the smoke, possibly then equating to the embers before proceeding down below rafters to find the floor context. Even so anybody looking at this matrix could still be in the position of believing that the deposits plaster, paint and smoke were formed under the law of superposition which they are not.
Lets call it archaeological combinatonics. Hope that's not too technical.