Sammenlign metoder

	Number of Identified Specimens (NISP)	Osteological Age & Sex Estimation
Fagområde	Arkæologi	Arkæologi
Familie	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Oprindelsesår	2008	1994
Ophavsperson	Standard zooarchaeological practice; statistical properties formalized by Donald Grayson and R. Lee Lyman	Jane Buikstra & Douglas Ubelaker (Standards synthesis)
Type	Primary observational tally of identified bone specimens per taxon	Standardized osteological pipeline for estimating age-at-death and biological sex
Oprindelig kilde	Reitz, E. J., & Wing, E. S. (2008). Zooarchaeology (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521673938	Buikstra, J. E., & Ubelaker, D. H. (1994). Standards for Data Collection from Human Skeletal Remains. Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series No. 44. ISBN: 9781563490750
Aliasser	NISP, Identified Specimen Count, Faunal Fragment Count, Specimen Tally	Skeletal Age Estimation, Age-at-Death Estimation, Biological Profile Estimation, Osteological Aging and Sexing
Relaterede	2	2
Resumé	The number of identified specimens, universally abbreviated NISP, is the most basic quantitative measure in zooarchaeology: a simple count of every bone or bone fragment that an analyst can identify to a taxon. It is the first number computed for almost any faunal assemblage because it is fast, transparent, additive across deposits, and reproducible. Yet, as Reitz and Wing emphasize and Lyman dissects in detail, NISP is an observation count rather than an animal count, and it is distorted by fragmentation, by recovery technique, and by the fact that fragments of a single bone are not independent of one another. Understanding precisely what NISP does and does not measure is the foundation on which all other faunal abundance estimates rest.	Osteological age and sex estimation is the foundational bioarchaeological procedure for building a biological profile from human skeletal remains: estimating how old an individual was at death and determining their biological sex. The skeleton changes in patterned ways across life — teeth form and erupt, growth plates fuse, and joint surfaces and bone microstructure gradually degenerate — and these changes are scored against reference standards to bracket age, while sexually dimorphic features of the pelvis and skull indicate sex. The standardized recording protocols compiled by Jane Buikstra and Douglas Ubelaker provide the discipline's shared methodology, ensuring that age and sex estimates are comparable across analysts and collections. Because the relationship between skeletal change and chronological age is variable, the method emphasizes multiple indicators and explicit uncertainty.