Quantitative Zooarchaeology: Topics in the Analysis of Archaelogical Faunas (Studies in Archaeology)

Quantitative Topics in the Analysis of Archaeological Faunas presents the problems in the quantification of bones and teeth from archaeological and palaeontological sites. This book discusses the various kinds of statistical manipulations that are done with the measurements. Organized into seven chapters, this book begins with an overview of the quantification of vertebrate faunas from archaeological and, to some extent, palaeontological sites. This text then explains the interrelationship between various abundance measures and the size of the samples on which those measures are based. Other chapters consider the fundamental kinds of questions that every faunal analyst asks of a set of bones and teeth from an archaeological site. This book discusses as well the ratio scale measure of taxonomic abundance. The final chapter discusses the three issues that deal with different aspects of archaeological faunal analysis, namely, collection techniques, meat weights, and the analysis of the seasons of the year during which an archaeological deposit accumulated. This book is a valuable resource for archaeological faunal analysts, archaeologists, and paleontologists. "MNI and NISP as Ordinal Scale MeasuresConclusions; CHAPTER4. Sample Size and Relative Abundance; Correlations between Sample Size and Relative Abundance: Some Examples; Exploring the Causes; Conclusions; CHAPTER5. Taxonomic Richness, Diversity, and Assemblage Size; Taxonomic Richness; Rarefaction and the Comparison of Species-Abundance Distributions; Diversity Indices and Sample Size; CHAPTER6. Collection Techniques, Meat Weights, and Seasonality; Collection Techniques; Meat Weights; Seasonality; CHAPTER7. Conclusions; References; Index" Donald K. Grayson. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 181-197.