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	Harris Matrix	Bayesian Chronological Modeling	Formation Process Analysis
Campo	Archeologia	Archeologia	Archeologia
Famiglia	Process / pipeline	Regression model	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	1973	2009	1987
Ideatore	Edward C. Harris (with the Winchester excavation team)	Christopher Bronk Ramsey (OxCal); Caitlin Buck and colleagues (Bayesian framework)	Michael B. Schiffer (behavioral archaeology)
Tipo	Stratigraphic recording and sequence-diagramming pipeline	Bayesian statistical model combining dates with prior archaeological information	Inferential framework and analysis pipeline for record formation
Fonte seminale	Harris, E. C. (1989). Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy (2nd ed.). Academic Press. ISBN: 9780123266514	Bronk Ramsey, C. (2009). Bayesian Analysis of Radiocarbon Dates. Radiocarbon, 51(1), 337-360.	Schiffer, M. B. (1987). Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. University of New Mexico Press. ISBN: 9780826309631
Alias	Stratigraphic Sequence Diagram, Harris-Winchester Matrix, Single-Context Recording, Context Sequence Diagram	Bayesian Radiocarbon Modeling, OxCal Bayesian Chronology, Bayesian Phase Modeling, Chronological Bayesian Modeling	Site Formation Analysis, C-transforms and N-transforms, Behavioral Archaeology Formation Theory, Archaeological Record Formation
Correlati	2	3	2
Sintesi	The Harris matrix is a method for recording and diagramming the stratigraphic sequence of an archaeological site as a partial-order diagram of individually defined contexts. Devised by Edward C. Harris at the Winchester excavations in 1973 and codified in his Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy, it treats every deposit, cut, and interface as a separate stratigraphic unit and reduces the tangle of physical relationships among them to a minimal directed acyclic graph that expresses only relative temporal order. By distinguishing physical superposition from temporal sequence and stripping away redundant relationships through transitive reduction, the matrix turns the three-dimensional complexity of a dig into a single, auditable diagram. It is the structural backbone of single-context recording and the standard interface between excavation and chronological modeling.	Bayesian chronological modeling refines archaeological chronologies by combining the calibrated probability distributions of individual radiocarbon dates with prior archaeological knowledge — most importantly the stratigraphic order of samples and their grouping into phases — within a single Bayesian model. Rather than treating each date in isolation, the method asks what calendar ages are jointly consistent with all the dates and all the ordering constraints at once, and returns sharpened posterior distributions for each date plus estimates of the start, end, and duration of phases and the timing of events. Formalized by Caitlin Buck and colleagues and made widely usable through Christopher Bronk Ramsey's OxCal software, with the international IntCal calibration curve as input, it has become the standard framework for high-precision archaeological dating.	Formation process analysis is the framework for identifying the cultural and natural processes that transform materials from their living, systemic context into the archaeological record we excavate. Developed by Michael Schiffer within behavioral archaeology and codified in his 1987 Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record, it insists that the archaeological record is not a fossilized snapshot of past life but the cumulative product of how things were discarded, lost, reused, and disturbed (cultural or C-transforms) and how they then decayed, moved, and mixed in the ground (natural or N-transforms). Because every deposit has been filtered and rearranged by these processes, sound inference about past behavior requires first reconstructing the formation history of the record and correcting for it. Formation process analysis is therefore foundational to interpretation, linking excavation, geoarchaeology, and taphonomy.