Quantitative Paleozoology

Quantitative Paleozoology describes and illustrates how the remains of long-dead animals recovered from archaeological and paleontological excavations can be studied and analyzed. The methods range from determining how many animals of each species are represented to determining whether one collection consists of more broken and more burned bones than another. All methods are described and illustrated with data from real collections, while numerous graphs illustrate various quantitative properties.

List of contents

1. Tallying and counting: fundamentals; 2. Estimating taxonomic abundances: NISP and MNI; 3. Estimating taxonomic abundances: other methods; 4. Sampling, recovery, and sample size; 5. Measuring the taxonomic structure and composition ('diversity') of faunas; 6. Skeletal completeness, frequencies of skeletal parts, and fragmentation; 7. Tallying for taphonomy: weathering, burning, corrosion, butchering; 8. Final thoughts.

About the author

R. Lee Lyman is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. A scholar of late Quaternary paleomammology and human prehistory of the Pacific Northwest United States, he is the author of Vertebrate Taphonomy and most recently coedited Zooarchaeology and Conservation Biology.

Product details

• Authors: R. Lee Lyman, Lyman R. Lee
• Publisher: Cambridge Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 07.04.2008
• EAN: 9780521887496
• ISBN: 978-0-521-88749-6
• Dimensions: 178 mm x 254 mm x 22 mm
• Weight: 870 g
• Illustrations: 75 tables, Tabellen, nicht spezifiziert
• Series: Cambridge Manuals in Archaeolo; Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Pre and early history; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology, SCIENCE / Paleontology, Palaeontology, Archaeological science, methodology & techniques, Archaeological science, methodology and techniques