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Harris Matrix: test first example from URAP #2399
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Is that a critique of the concept of the Harris Matrix, then I agree, or do you think some of those loci could have been placed in a better layer by the algorithm on the basis of the available information? |
I need to test if it would be possible on the basis of available information. But it is clear to me that this could only be used in interpretation itself, not as an illustration of interpretation, if one cannot adjust the chronological levels/vertical positions of things manually. For instance I suspect strongly enough that it wants representation that FA-056 and FA-027 are contemporary. That is not algorithmically derivable. But I would like to move the whole of the left most column (Sondage 1) down so that FA-027 is at the same level as FA-056 (in Sondage 2). Note to myself: in terms of deriving things algorithmically, your test should be: You know that FA-005 is later than FA-002. Is there any way Kiosk should have known that? That should be complicated enough... |
well, I "strongly suspect" is problematic enough. My suggestion would be that one can add interpretational relationships that would be visualized differently from the others and I can even imagine that one could add different sets of them. But lets not make it too complicated. If I give you the ability to establish an interpretational relationship in the graph that re-renders the thing (only be aware that re-rendering can change the whole graph substantially) then you could add the algorithmic data that makes the nodes move to the layers you suspect they belong. |
Well but that is just it, right? Is the HM a representation of the known certain chronological implications of stratigraphic relations? Or is it a representation of the interpretation of chronological events? I want to be able to play around with an interpretational relationship and see what it does, but is that really complicated on your end? I am currently struggling with an interesting case. FA-006 is a wall. All the walls were built before the floor was put down. The floor was put down in two phases, FA-023 is a mud layer, and then FA-024 is the bricks set in it. In the case of FA-006 we did not have a cut perpendicular to the wall, so we saw this only from the top, we could only record that FA-024 abuts the wall FA-006. I know from the relationship of those two floor phases to one another and how they must have been constructed, and can see in relation to other walls, that there is no way FA-023 can be the same date as FA-006 - the wall had to be there before any of the floor was built. I can only observe it for the top layer in this case. So I have an HM with FA-006 contemporary to FA-023, and that's not wrong algorithmically - they are both earlier than FA-024. But it is wrong and I know it to be so. The relationship of the FA-024 floor to the walls is the place where I can best test the A-B-C issue. On a purely chronological level it's right everywhere else. But those are the major architectural phases of this unit and they touch each other and I really have to remind myself no, this does a different thing than a section drawing does. |
So now I have two interpretational relations I want to input if given that opportunity: (I am editing this comment to reflect all the interpretational relations I want to put in, so I don't have to sort through the whole ticket later: FA-027 is the same time as FA-056. To play with (I thought it was possible but was not sure, and it would rearrange a few things on the HM): FA-042 is equivalent to FA-042. Oh also to play with: FA-027 and FA-046 were thought at one point to potentially be the same layer. I need to try that - to my eye looking at the current HM that is stratigraphically impossible but I am not confident in that at all and want to know what happens if it is the case. |
I would also add interpretationally that: That is a less secure interpretation, however, so wow danger. I still really like this wonderful puzzle of a unit. It was so much fun. |
Or are there archaeologists with "formal training" in HM who do have expectations? Well, I don't know. But apart from that we can decide ourselves what we want it to be and how we want it to work. To me it seems much more useful as a tool to study your stratigraphy than as a somewhat static picture that tells you the stratigraphy (because it can't in part because there are many loci that cannot be put on one or the other layer). So playing around with it (coloring it, marking it, enriching it with other data from the record) would be interesting. There is just one major caveat from my point of view: if I give you the opportunity to play around with your stratigraphy you might be tempted to make it fit and add interpretational relationships until it is more plausible than it actually should be. But one can battle that part at least by visually distinguishing between relationships that have been recorded in the field or found otherwise physically compelling and suspected (or wished for :o)) relations added later. |
perhaps somebody wants to read the manual? One can get it for free at http://harrismatrix.com/about-the-book/ in many languages 🌵 @luizaogs has added thoughts of the same nature in #2398. Let's discuss the "interpretational relations" here in FA for the time being. |
I like the idea of interpretational relations :) |
While you guys are analyzing this please try to distill a few good archaeological cases out of this that show what I think is the main weakness of the harris matrix: Seemingly false precision. While I have to place a node (locus) on one of the layers often enough the data does not require it to be on exactly one and not any other layer. So the node seems to be contemporaneous with some other node but the data is not that clear. If was for a while thinking that one should draw the corridor of layers in which a locus exists relative to other layers. Could be a shaded background or so. But I think the Harris method does not do such a thing. So if you run into actual archaeology that reveals the problem that I only see theoretically please write it down so that it can be explained in the class room. |
Yeah I noted a few instances where I thought this had happened in the AA matrix in #2398 but I'll note more if I see them. |
💤 Time for me. But this is fun. |
Musing by the fire. I want interpretational relations for the HM. But where do they exist and how and how aside from the HM would they be seen and recorded? I'm very wary of having them in the recording in a way equivalent to the observed relations; the slippage where something recorded becomes something extant is scary to me. We have always been careful to separate the observation and interpretation for a reason. @urapadmin do you mean to give us these in a way that changes the matrix only, or that changes the recording? |
Another missing relation in the data that will make a difference: (Take a look at FA-010 and FA-011 - if they are not contemporary with FA-009 something is weird, though there should not be any algorithmic way of determining that other than that they are all directly on top of FA-024.) |
Yeah wow. |
(I want a quality control rule that nothing except bedrock or topsoil can possibly have only one locus relation, and even that would be suspect.) I fixed those last ones but you might want to wait until I have gone through everything to run the HM again. |
Last not totally coherent thought before I go to bed: |
Already with FA and certainly with anything that has more loci: an absolutely ideal HM UI would include the ability to search for and highlight a locus. I am doing so much going back and forth (I have the recording system open on two devices and sheets of paper flying all over the place too), so it's not just going from the matrix to the recording. I need to go the other direction, too. And then it takes me ages to find my locus. |
Oh yes, I second this if that’s possible to do. Even with AA yesterday which is much less complicated I kept losing loci and getting a headache going back and forth. I mean, actually, an absolutely ideal HM UI would not only allow me to search for loci but also to go to those loci by clicking on them. It sounds like this will be in Kiosk rather than the recording app, yes? Is there a way to connect it to Q&V to pull up locus information that way? |
A case of what I might call compound false precision that is interesting: I can add these to the "interpretational" list above, but I note them separately here because I think this is what you are asking for in terms of false precision? A much more straightforward case is FA-058. Again no way for the algorithm to know. That is on the same level as FA-019, just for instance, and FA-058 is ancient and FA-019 is a modern looter's pit, so definitely not the same phase. But there is really no way an algorithm could know this. FA--58 was ancient but it is not a well-networked locus, being a floor on top of a floor and already exposed to the sky when we found it. |
Okay, while we get many ideas on how to implement a Harris Matrix as a more interactive tool here, what I still need before I can do anything is: |
FA-008 FA-009 FA-010 FA-011 FA-034
When you are finally done with FA and are absolutely convinced that the locus relations in the recording database are correct as far as possible (no more shoddy recording) I will go through the not insubstantial labour again and put them in the HM composer to get a final opinion on what that one spits out. |
On a sense level (I still have not caught this out as having any errors in applying the relations) FA-017 needs to be later than all those little walls just listed above. |
Thinking of the trouble I had with the AA matrix, that seems very helpful. |
I do have a question about why in the cluster one FA-008 is treated as having a different relationship to FA-002. Or at least, it is the only one of the cluster whose abutting to FA-002 is not rendered, and I thought I must have missed the relation but at least in the current version (so many versions, one of the problems) it is already in there. So. I like the grey arrows. Not too intrusive, provide the answer as to which things are actually known to be contemporary. I dislike that it crosses FA-023 up there - @urapadmin you just added these, or were they taken into account when rendering? I am ready to compare this with the proprietary HM generator, so you can go ahead and feed that beast. |
Could that be the reason why? |
You don't? I downloaded afresh this morning and that abuts was in there I
thought. Possibly again I put it in after you created the above?
|
you might. I didn't. Yesterday when I made this I was still using the data from the day before. You must tell me when you actually synchronize a new relation. |
Here is the HM Composer version of that unit. To stay under the 48 node limit I had to cut out a few more boring relations: I was trying to cut out edges that would have the least impact on the overall graph. The result is this: As you can see, the Composer, too, eliminates the abutting of FA-008 and FA-002 on validation. So on that front we are consistent. |
So: Supposing that I can get closer to the orthogonal lines of the hm composer (I will not avoid crossings as well as that one), how close are we here from the archaeological standpoint? Can you find advantages in a region? |
Comparing these is complicated; I'll make notes here as I go. Are all the locus relations for FA-033 input for the HM? If so it has made a mistake; FA-033 is by direct relationship earlier than FA-030 and the HM composer has them on the same line. Both Kiosk and HM put FA-019 and FA-003 on the top line. Those are ALL that are on the top line for HM, whereas Kiosk lifts a bunch of other things up. It's a mixed bag - FA-014 and FA-036 absolutely belong at the end chronologically and thus in the top layer. FA-058 does not. But neither of these could have known that. Both put FA-010 and FA-011 near the top. Those are amongst the loci we clustered above and brought into line with FA-008 and FA-009. Neither composer gets that without us clustering them. One advantage of the orthogonal lines in HM that I hadn't appreciated is that it makes it easier for me to see which loci could slide up and down chronologically - made it easier to catch FA-033. But right now my feeling is that Kiosk actually does a better job getting loci with relationally indeterminate chronology into later positions, and while that is of course sometimes a mistake it is as said above a lesser problem than putting things too early. That FA-024 is its own phase is the case in both. |
I missed that one. No bugs in the hm composer. |
and as for nodes on the same layer: We must once and for all accept that unless there is a direct contemporary relation between two loci one must not read the fact that two loci share a layer as any indication that they are contemporary. That is really misreading a Harris Matrix. I wonder if Harris himself pointed that fact out in his book that everybody refuses to read. |
He absolutely deletes superfluous relationships, so we and the HM composer have his blessing there. He also argues against those who would call the section drawing obsolete. This is like reading the bible if you've been to Sunday school your whole life and imbibed all the stories but never before the original words. I may not have used Harris matrices before, but apparently nearly everything I think and teach about stratigraphy can be found here. |
Oh, ja, I didn't expect to get so extensive, nor really think about it. Bibby is the author of a chapter in the second Harris book, the one on putting the matrix into practice. I will make us some notes and put the two volumes and the notes in a google folder and remove them from this ticket, once I get a fire going. |
@lbestock: FA with only very minor issues: |
we also still have wider nodes and I can collapse the empty vertical columns. That'll gain a few more pixels. I think I got it. |
I think we can close this one, no? |
@lbestock can we close this? |
closing it |
Testing Unit FA much as #2398 tests an MKAP unit.
Initial notes:
FA-001 and FA-002 are bonded. That is a "same time as" relationship and they are not on the same level. Furthermore FA-024 is known directly (now that I updated the relations) to be later than FA-001. Shouldn't FA-001 be lower than FA-024, then?
In general the levels are very poor indicators of chronology. Only the relations between individual nodes are useful on that front, the overall needs me to move things up or down all over the place. I note only the FA-001/2 thing because I thought this should have caught that with a relationship thus defined. (This is a problem with the HM generator, too. I
There is a clear test case of the A-B-C issue in FA-025, FA-026, FA-027. If I am reading this purely for chronology, which I am, it does not bother me that this is represented as simple and linear while the physical relations were not.
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