HI All -- I agree with Julia but also with Richard: I positively love
making "reconstructions of life appearance" as I feel it brings the
science to life for the reader as well as for the general public -- that
is to say, the taxpaying public who are the ones who ultimately pay our
salaries, and who deserve to know what the heck we're doing.
On the technical level, the one additional point I'd raise is the "squash"
factor, i.e. there is considerable angle in most mammals at the
scapulo-humeral, coxofemoral, and femoro-tibial joints, and there is no
way to tell how "crouched" or "squashed" any of these angles may be in a
given animal at any given moment. What was the animal's typical carriage?
What might be reasonable? This is where the "educated guesstimate" comes
in, and the best educated guessers are those who have been educated by
much contact and experience with the animal they are reconstructing.
Cheers -- Dr. Deb
> Hi Marta,
>
>
> I would be a little wary of how you use your withers height data. As
> Richard says they are useful for conveying an impression of animal size,
> but have in the past been used to make comparisons between measurements
> of different limb bones i.e. convert all of your limb bone measurements
> to withers heights and then compare the resulting heights, thus
> effectively increasing your sample size.
>
>
> However I have found that bones from the /same individual/ can give
> notably different withers heights - although I couldn't say at present
> if these were /statistically significant/ differences. This is likely
> largely due to environmental influences on bone growth for example
> nutritional level or castration and the timing of such influences in
> relation to the age of an individual animal. For example a period of
> poor nutrition early on in the life of an animal will have a greater
> effect on the eventual length of the early fusing limb bones than it
> will on the later fusing limb bones so that the withers height
> calculated from say the metatarsal of that animal may be somewhat
> different to the withers height calculated from the femur for instance.
>
>
> Much more research is needed into the validity of withers height
> calculations.
>
>
> If you want any more information on environmental influences on bone
> growth please let me know. Also see:
>
>
> https://historicengland.org.uk/research/current/heritage-science/TheSheepProject/
>
>
> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440312000301
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> Julia
>
>
>
>
>
> *Dr Julia E. M. Cussans*
> Archaeozoologist
>
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> On 22-Sep-17 10:21 AM, Thomas, Richard M. (Dr.) wrote:
>>
>> Hi Marta, Laszlo, all
>>
>>
>> Withers heights has its place, but it only describes one anatomical
>> plane and they are only as reliable as the underlying regression
>> equations. Inter-population variability in withers heights
>> calculations has yet to be pursued, to my knowledge, but I would be
>> surprised if there was not some biogeographic variability. That said,
>> I think withers are useful for communicating a sense of animal size,
>> particularly to non-zooarchaeological audiences.
>>
>>
>> Irrespective, I would always advocate the use of withers height
>> calculations alongside the study of individual length, breadth and
>> depth measurements and measurement ratios to better describe the shape
>> as well as size of animals
>>
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>>
>> Richard
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites
>> <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Laszlo Bartosiewicz
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> *Sent:* 22 September 2017 10:14
>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>> *Subject:* [ZOOARCH] comment on the use of withers heights
>> 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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