The Harris Matrix at Fifty (almost)
[pg10]
A background note
The Harris Matrix was an artistic accident that happened on the evening of 28 February 1973, as a result of attempting to understand the tangled web that was the record of an excavation of the 1960s. It was called a “matrix” as it was seen as a format in which stratigraphic data could be visualized and thus assist in comprehending such mazes. The Matrix brought into focus significant issues with the recording of stratification in archaeology, which were mostly resolved in a small book on the subject.
[fg]jpg|Fig 1: The 9000-plus units of this stratigraphic sequence took several months to compile in 1974, whereas today the sequence would be completed the day excavation ceases. Such sequences can also reflect the waxing and waning of activity on sites through time.|Image[/fg]
[fg]jpg|Fig 2: The Harris Matrix changed the stratigraphic paradigm in archaeology from the one-dimensional section drawing to the four-dimensions of the stratigraphic sequence.|Image[/fg]
You might say that the County of Kent is responsible for the 1979 publication of Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy, perhaps the seminal book for archaeological methods, at least in matters of excavation, which are of course our unique contribution to history. This is part of the unwritten background of Principles: three years after the invention of the Harris Matrix in 1973, I was engaged by the government on a project at Sandgate Castle, a Henrician fort on the coast of Kent, later modified into a Martello Tower. Perhaps the best-recorded standing structure of its type, a case in the High Court of Chancery was necessary to clear the deck for its publication, along with some 20 drawings I did of much of its stonework and other salient features. That imbroglio was connected to the denial of access to the records of another archaeological site, upon which my doctorate was to have been based. Fortunately, the thesis topic was shifted to the concept of stratigraphy in archaeology. The gist of the dissertation was published as Principles…, the volume defining archaeology as a science of stratigraphy in its own right.
[pg11]The archaeological article on Sandgate Castle appeared in 1980 and, by the by, the Master at the High Court had been delighted that his set of Archaeologia Cantiana had sold previously for a good price.
Principles and the Matrix
The book of principles for the observation, record and interpretation of stratification on archaeological sites was an outcome of the advent of the Harris Matrix, which made it possible for the first time to see the stratigraphic sequences of sites, no matter the size, location or cultural context of such. Prior to the Matrix, archaeology was in the stranglehold of the “section”, which only shows the stratigraphic record on one vertical plane of a site and not its totality in area, the geology versus the geography, if you will. Combined with excavation in several holes separated by baulks, the two balked the creation of unified stratigraphic sequences. However, at the time, few used that phrase to indicate such standalone entities, like Matrix drawings, as we now know them. Some realized that the geography was being overlooked and thus “open-area excavation” came into vogue. Still, the necessary evolution in recording methods did not so evolve, as the nature of the vital ingredient in the layercake of archaeology, the “surface” aspect of stratification, was not understood until the mid-1970s.
[fg]jpg|Fig 3: The Roman South Gate at Winchester was one of the first sites for which a true stratigraphic sequence was made, now commonly called a ‘matrix’.|Image[/fg]
It was not immediately apparent what the Matrix was, and the original drawing was described as a “Layer Chart”. It took some years, thanks in part to advice from colleagues, such as Frances Lynch-LLewellyn and Laurence Keen, before it was understood that Matrix diagrams represented the four dimensions of the stratigraphic sequences of sites. The major missing component of that archaeological time machine was the “surface”. Most pre-1973 sites are perhaps under-recorded by up to 51 per cent of the stratigraphic units, as there are always more surfaces than layers on any archaeological site. It then transpired that surfaces, not deposits, are the key to unlocking the stratigraphic sequence and that every surface must be recorded, as they do not exist (unlike deposits) unless recorded. With a record of surfaces, the topography of a site can be reconstructed, which surely must be a primary archaeological task, for people live on surfaces, not in the muck that are deposits. The conflation of surfaces with deposits impeded the creation of true stratigraphic sequences in a Matrix diagram.
Contrary views and acceptance
With the coming of the Matrix, the archaeological world split into for and against camps, with considerable resistance coming from geological-minded souls. Since archaeology had been bumbling along with principles borrowed from geology, some critics were affronted that independence was declared in the form of archaeological standards for stratigraphic methods, while others did not like the departure from Kenyon-Wheeler systems, failing to see that the Matrix was a logical evolution from those methods.
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[fg]jpg|Fig 4: A stratigraphic sequence (left) can be grouped into ‘phases’ (centre), which can be represented as sequence diagram then separated into the larger ‘periods’ (right)|Image[/fg]
Others, like the Italians, for example, published a foreign language edition of Principles in 1983, which is still in print and includes a fifty-page introduction by Professor Daniele Manacorda. Almost fifty years on, with the passing of a generation, acceptance of the Matrix and Principles of an Archaeological Stratigraphy seems complete, with several foreign language editions now in print or digital formats, the most recent being Korean, French and Arabic, with a Chinese edition imminent.
In 2005, with the assistance of the National Museum of Bermuda and Wolfgang Neubauer and Klaus Loecker of the University of Vienna, Principles went airborne as a free download on www. harrismatrix.com. That support has continued under Dr Neubauer via the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology, perhaps the leading research body into stratigraphic methods in Europe, with the latest rendition of the web site being sponsored by Santiago and Michelle Pujadas, Bob Minkus, and their team at the Pennsylvania media firm, 0to5.
[pg13]The Harris Matrix has been able to merge almost seamlessly into the internet and digital world, especially with the development of Geographical Information Systems for recording and manipulating mapping data of surfaces. Here again, the LBI has come to the fore with its freely accessible programme, the Harris Matrix Composer, which can generate matrices as well as much other data. Looking back on almost 50 years of development, it is perhaps fair to state that the Harris Matrix and accompanying principles of our science of archaeological stratigraphy have been two of the most significant occurrences in our unique field for the explanation of human history through the stratigraphic record of sites and monuments, the physical nature of which is “undesigned commemorative of the Past”, as Sir Charles Lyell once wrote of the geological record of the Earth.
The archaeological record now covers countless square miles of that natural record, and its interpretation is our primary goal based upon principles of archaeological stratigraphy, now a maturing and vibrant science in its own right. The contribution of the Harris Matrix and Principles cannot be gainsaid if considered as now commonplace by the institutions and many of our unique profession.
Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, PhD, FSA
Bermuda
[fg]jpg|Fig 5: The cover of Manfred Eggert’s 2001 publication on methods in Prehistoric Archaeology indicating that the Harris Matrix has passed into common knowledge.|Image[/fg]
[fg]Fig 6: The cover of the French edition of Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy, translated by Anne-Sophie Murray and available for free at www.harrismatrix.com [/fg]
[fg]Fig 7: Archaeologists David Bibby and Wolfgang Neubauer with the “layer cake” celebrating the 31st anniversary of the Harris Matrix in 2004 in Austria.[/fg]