Harris matrix

The Harris Matrix is a system for organizing and representing the relative ages of contexts on an archaeological site. It was developed by E. Harris at Winchester for representing a site’s stratigraphy in schematic form, emphasising the chronological relationships between the various deposits.

In essence each element of a site can be displayed in relative time order. using the example on the left, it works on the principal that if a relative age relationship can be worked out between context 1 and 2 and also between 2 and 4 it may be possible to work out the relative position of 1 to 4. Contemporaneity between contexts can also be displayed, i.e. the contexts are of the same date.

A box represents each context, identified by a unique number, and relationships are shown by the positions of the boxes to one another and the fact that they linked by a line. If a box is drawn over another box that it is linked to it means that the context represented above is later in date. Boxes shown alongside one another are contexts of the same age. In this way artefacts from within the contexts may also be assigned a date in relation to those from other contexts.