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Yes, that's a good point! And the problem is even more acute when you are dealing with comparisons between samples which have very different sizes, often the case in prehistoric contexts. Dr Anne TRESSET ESA 8045 du CNRS "Archéozoologie et Histoire des Sociétés" Laboratoire d'Anatomie Comparée Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle 55 rue Buffon - 75005 Paris - FRANCE Tel : +33 (0)1 40 79 33 30 Fax : +33 (0)1 40 79 33 14 -----Message d'origine----- De : tpoc1 <[log in to unmask]> À : Jaco Weinstock <[log in to unmask]> Cc : Archaeozoology mail list <[log in to unmask]> Date : vendredi 9 juin 2000 10:54 Objet : Re: quantification Thanks Jaco - it's goood to have some company in the anti-MNI corner! Apart from the familiar problems associated with the estimation of MNI in the first place, how do you then carry out arithmetic (i.e. for percentages etc) on figures that are minima of a range of which the maximum and most probable intermediate value are unknown. Does 'at least 2' plus 'at least 2' actually make 'at least 4'? Terry Jaco Weinstock wrote: > > I totally agree with Terry; minimum numbers should be only used in very > special situations (e.g. multiple burials, etc.). I think all of us are > aware of the problems with MNIs, and regard this number as unreliable at > best. According to my experience, however, an important problem resides > in the fact that many of our colleague archaeologists (at least in > Germany) are still very keen on it, and use the number in calculations > which are biased from the beginning. As long as we keep providing this > number it will be misused (e.g. as in comparisons of relative abundance > of species between sites that differ considerably in the size of their > assemblages). > I regard the us of NISP and bone weight complementarily (the second > method reduces the effects of fragmentation) as the best alternative in > most situations. It goes without saying that these methods involve some > problems as well. > cheers, Jaco > > -- > Jaco Weinstock > Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde > Rosenstein 1, D-70191 Stuttgart > Germany %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%