Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the Harris method for running an excavation, speeding up... more Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the Harris method for running an excavation, speeding up the pace of interpretive insights, and simplifying the post-excavation analysis leading to site reports and inter-site comparative studies, with the help of phasing stratigraphic sequences at Colonial Williamsburg. The field excavations at Colonial Williamsburg are performed with an explicitly stratigraphic approach. Matrix diagrams following the Harris method are prepared while in the field, both single-context and composite plans are used quite heavily in post-excavation analysis. Based mostly on stratigraphic evidence, with artefactual (and sometimes documentary) data providing dates for specific events, sites can usually be divided into periods or phases of as little as a decade or two. Such periodization is used in all subsequent analysis of the finds. This process is particularly helpful in assessing archeological evidence relating to household chronology, the domestic development cycle, the sequence of production activities, and status or occupation.
Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the Harris method for running an excavation, speeding up... more Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the Harris method for running an excavation, speeding up the pace of interpretive insights, and simplifying the post-excavation analysis leading to site reports and inter-site comparative studies, with the help of phasing stratigraphic sequences at Colonial Williamsburg. The field excavations at Colonial Williamsburg are performed with an explicitly stratigraphic approach. Matrix diagrams following the Harris method are prepared while in the field, both single-context and composite plans are used quite heavily in post-excavation analysis. Based mostly on stratigraphic evidence, with artefactual (and sometimes documentary) data providing dates for specific events, sites can usually be divided into periods or phases of as little as a decade or two. Such periodization is used in all subsequent analysis of the finds. This process is particularly helpful in assessing archeological evidence relating to household chronology, the domestic development cycle, the sequence of production activities, and status or occupation.
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