Quantitative Paleozoology

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ISBN: 9780521715362 | 0521715369
Cover: Paperback
Copyright: 3/31/2008

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Quantitative Paleozoology describes and illustrates how the remains of long-dead animals recovered from archaeological and paleontological excavations can be studied and analyzed. The methods range from determining how many animals of each species are represented to determining whether one collection consists of more broken and more burned bones than another. All methods are described and illustrated with data from real collections, while numerous graphs illustrate various quantitative properties.

List of figures	p. xi
List of tables	p. xvii
Preface	p. xxi
Tallying and Counting: Fundamentals	p. 1
Paleozoological Concepts	p. 4
Mathematical and Statistical Concepts	p. 8
Scales of Measurement	p. 8
Measured and Target Variables: Reliability and Validity	p. 11
Absolute and Relative Frequencies and Closed Arrays	p. 13
Discussion	p. 16
Background of Some Faunal Samples	p. 17
Estimating Taxonomic Abundances: NISP and MNI	p. 21
The Number of Identified Specimens (NISP)	p. 27
Advantages of NISP	p. 28
Problems with NISP	p. 29
Problems, Schmoblems	p. 30
A Problem We Should Worry About	p. 36
The Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI)	p. 38
Strengths(?) of MNI	p. 43
Problems with MNI	p. 45
Aggregation	p. 57
Defining Aggregates	p. 67
Discussion	p. 69
Which Scale of Measurement?	p. 71
Resolution	p. 78
Conclusion	p. 81
Estimating Taxonomic Abundances: Other Methods	p. 83
Biomass and Meat Weight	p. 84
Measuring Biomass	p. 85
Problems with Measuring Biomass (based on MNI)	p. 86
Solving Some Problems in Biomass Measurement	p. 88
Measuring Meat Weight	p. 89
The Weight Method (Skeletal Mass Allometry)	p. 93
Bone Weight	p. 102
Bone Size and Animal Size Allometry	p. 108
Ubiquity	p. 114
Matching and Pairing	p. 119
More Pairs Means Fewer Individuals	p. 121
The Lincoln-Petersen Index	p. 123
Identifying Bilateral Pairs	p. 129
Correcting for Various Things	p. 134
Size	p. 137
Discussion	p. 139
Sampling, Recovery, and Sample Size	p. 141
Sampling to Redundancy	p. 143
Excavation Amount	p. 144
NISP as a Measure of Sample Redundancy	p. 146
Volume Excavated or NISP	p. 149
The Influences of Recovery Techniques	p. 152
Hand Picking Specimens by Eye	p. 152
Screen Mesh Size	p. 154
To Correct or Not to Correct for Differential Loss	p. 156
Summary	p. 158
The Species-Area Relationship	p. 159
Species-Area Curves Are Not All the Same	p. 164
Nestedness	p. 167
Conclusion	p. 171
Measuring the Taxonomic Structure and Composition ("Diversity") of Faunas	p. 172
Basic Variables of Structure and Composition	p. 174
Indices of Structure and Similarity	p. 178
Taxonomic Richness	p. 179
Taxonomic Composition	p. 185
Taxonomic Heterogeneity	p. 192
Taxonomic Evenness	p. 194
Discussion	p. 198
Trends in Taxonomic Abundances	p. 203
Conclusion	p. 209
Skeletal Completeness, Frequencies of Skeletal Parts, and Fragmentation	p. 214
History of the MNE Quantitative Unit	p. 215
Determination of MNE Values	p. 218
MNE Is Ordinal Scale at Best	p. 222
A Digression on Frequencies of Left and Right Elements	p. 229
Using MNE Values to Measure Skeletal-Part Frequencies	p. 232
Modeling and Adjusting Skeletal-Part Frequencies	p. 233
Measuring Skeletal Completeness	p. 241
A Suggestion	p. 244
Measuring Fragmentation	p. 250
Fragmentation Intensity and Extent	p. 250
The NISP:MNE Ratio	p. 251
Discussion	p. 254
Conclusion	p. 261
Tallying for Taphonomy: Weathering, Burning, Corrosion, and Butchering	p. 264
Yet Another Quantitative Unit	p. 266
Weathering	p. 267
Chemical Corrosion and Mechanical Abrasion	p. 273
Burning and Charring	p. 274
A Digression	p. 276
Gnawing Damage	p. 277
Butchering Marks	p. 279
Types of Butchering Damage	p. 280
Tallying Butchering Evidence: General Comments	p. 281
Tallying Percussion Damage	p. 283
Tallying Cut Marks and Cut Marked Specimens	p. 284
The Surface Area Solution	p. 286
Discussion	p. 291
Conclusion	p. 296
Final Thoughts	p. 299
Counting as Exploration	p. 302
Glossary	p. 309
References	p. 313
Index	p. 345
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Quantitative Paleozoology

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