An updated GIS-based system for calculating MNE and quantifying bone surface modification frequencies and spatial location on skeletal elements in faunal assemblages

Summary

Zooarchaeology continues to suffer methodological problems in that analysts use methods for calculating skeletal element and surface modification abundance that vary widely, are non-transparent, and almost certainly produce data that is not comparable across analysts. In 2001, Marean, Abe, Nilssen, and Stone presented a method to overcome these problems by using a GIS-based approach to calculate minimum numbers of skeletal elements (MNE) and surface modification frequencies corrected for preserved surface area. That software was designed in ESRI ArcView and has been widely used and cited. Here, we present an improved and expanded version of their methodology that now runs with ESRI ArcGIS 10.x software. This new software package, which will be available freely, is called "Faunalyze 2.1", and it implements the open-sourced Python 3.4 computing language, which is native to ArcGIS geoprocessing. We will also provide an overview of the program architecture as well as a brief example of the software in use.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Rethinking Methods of Faunal Analysis   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16574