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Dear Anna,
I see there has been a suggestion to use bone weight. While probably a good idea, as bone weight is correlated with carcass size and meat weight, you need to be careful.
For example will you weigh bones with or without their grease? In my experience of preparing animal skeletons I know that grease is often quite difficult to extract completely.
Bones of modern animals vary according to grease content, among other things of course. Often old animals that died of starvation or suffered osteoporosis will have lighter bones. Fossil bones from archaeological sites also vary in weight according to the kind of soil they were deposited in. For example I would suspect that in low pH soils the bones will be lighter than those in high pH ones.
best
simon davis



-----Mensagem original-----
De: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites em nome de Anna Goldfield
Enviada: seg 09-12-2013 19:57
Para: [log in to unmask]
Assunto: [ZOOARCH] Fwd: Modern vs. Prehistoric reindeer body size
 
Hello all,

I'm looking for sources on body mass estimates for Paleolithic
reindeer (*Rangifer
tarandus*). For modern specimens, I've got measurements of between 159 and
182kg for an adult male, but have reason to believe that Paleolithic
individuals were larger. I have yet to find any sources with actual
estimates.

Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,


Anna Goldfield
PhD Student, Boston University Dept. of Archaeology




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Anna Goldfield
PhD Student, Boston University Dept. of Archaeology