Articlehybrid2016

Evaluating three methods to estimate the number of individuals from a commingled context

Nicole Lambacher · Karina Gerdau-Radonić · Emma Bonthorne · Francisco José Valle de Tarazaga Montero

45 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Archaeological Science Reports

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies Archaeology and ancient environmental studies Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

Abstract

An estimate of how many individuals are represented in a commingled assemblage is important to interpret the wider context (archaeologically or forensically), for further analyses, and for palaeodemographic studies. The aim of this study was to establish whether the Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) and Minimum Number of Elements (MNE) estimates produced by three different methods (traditional MNI (White, 1953); zonation method (Knüsel and Outram, 2004); the landmark method (Mack et al., 2015)) are the same or, if different, to evaluate these differences. The methods were applied to an assemblage recovered from a Spanish medieval cemetery from Navarra and used to estimate the Number of Identified Specimens (NISP), the MNI and the MNE according to each method. Fragmentation analysis was also performed. The results indicate different values of MNE and MNI when applying different methods. White's MNI equaled 84; the MNI by zones 68; and the MNI by landmarks 61. All methods showed differences but the disparity between the traditional MNI and the MNI by landmarks was highest. Furthermore, the results indicate that different methods had a minimal impact on estimates of smaller bones. Individuals may be double counted by White's MNI count and the zonation method, when refitting exercises cannot be applied to all fragments from the same context or site, or if the 50% presence rule is not applied to the method. Finally, these findings have important implications for future analysis of commingled remains, because MNE and MNI estimates, as well as levels of fragmentation can impact on decisions made to further analyse the collection. Further research on a known collection is needed to identify the most reliable method to use.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 45 citations exist upstream.

References

2001Developmental juvenile osteology.2000Developmental Juvenile Osteology 2008Juvenile Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual 2009Social archaeology of funerary remains 1994Standards for data collection from human skeletal remains : proceedings of a seminar at the Field Museum of Natural History, organized by Jonathan Haas 2008Recovery, Analysis, and Identification of Commingled Human Remains 1974Reconstruction of Demographic Profiles from Ossuary Skeletal Samples: A Case Study from the Tidewater Potomac 2001Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave From the Battle of Towton AD 1461

Cited by

2024A review of the contributions of forensic archaeology and anthropology to the process of disaster victim identification 2021Who was buried with Nestor’s Cup? Macroscopic and microscopic analyses of the cremated remains from Tomb 168 (second half of the 8th century BCE, Pithekoussai, Ischia Island, Italy)2021Differential diagnosis of metabolic disease in a commingled sample from 19th century Hisban, Jordan 2021Exploring the Functionality of Mesh-to-Mesh Value Comparison in Pair-Matching and Its Application to Fragmentary Remains

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.