Dear Fellow Quantifiers,
Recently I have come to agree with Jean-hervé about the merits of
weighing bones (individually) whenever possible. Even if bone
(specific) weight is dependent on fossil diagenesis i.e.
mineralization, it is additional info that helps adjusting inevitable
NISP values better than MNI (I think). I prefer parameters as raw
and unmanipulated as possible, because otherwise I feel a risk of
recombining bits and pieces several decades apart. That would be
no time archaeologically speaking, however, try to eat single "MNI"
pig for e.g. 32 years (dendro). Using bone weights to directly
quantify meat consumption a la Kubasiewicz may be risky, however
(bone loss is is a fact). Never the less I find bone weights less
speculative than estimating MNIs of some sort, and then back-
calculating from these abstract values using largely hypothetical
carcass weights. I am sure biases add up madly.
Laszlo
(Bartosiewicz)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|