Dear Marta and All,
The tradition of calculating whithers heights originates from the late 19th century and was widely used in archaeozoology in the 1960s-1970s when our rapidly emerging discipline was closely related to animal breeding, especially in central Europe. While it is of help in understanding how tall animals may have been, its archaeological interpretations have been overshadowed by other concerns in zooarchaeology (herd management strategies, optimal foraging etc.).
As for technical applicability, the method suffers from the same bias as ALL phenotypic measurements: the influences of inheritance and environment cannot be distinguished. But it could become interesting again with backup by aDNA studies. For one thing, individual withers heights estimated from bone lengths are far more reliable than those of body weight.
Interpretations can be really interesting in dogs (due to great size variability) and horses (in relation to riding). But if you have complete long bones, calculating withers heights adds to the description of other species as well.
Best wishes, Laszlo
________________________________________
From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Marta Moreno García <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 22 September 2017 10:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] on the use of withers height
Dear all,
Paper received thanks to Idoia. If anybody else is interested, write to me.
Best,
Marta
El 22/09/2017 a las 9:06, Marta Moreno García escribió:
> Dear all,
>
> I would be very grateful if anybody could send me the pdf of the
> following publication:
>
> TEICHERT, Manfred (1975) - Osteometrische Untersuchungen zur
> Berechnung der Widweristhöhe bei Schafen. In CLASON, Anneke T., -
> Archaeozoological Studies: papers of the Archaeozoological
> Conference, 1974. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, pp. 51-69.
>
> Also I would like to have some feedback on the use of withers height.
> Do you use this parameter at all? Do you find it useful? Does it
> provide relevant and trustful data?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Marta
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