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	Zooarchaeological Quantification	Number of Identified Specimens (NISP)
Fagområde	Arkæologi	Arkæologi
Familie	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Oprindelsesår	2008	2008
Ophavsperson	Elizabeth Reitz & Elizabeth Wing (synthesis); R. Lee Lyman (critical formalization)	Standard zooarchaeological practice; statistical properties formalized by Donald Grayson and R. Lee Lyman
Type	Suite of quantitative measures of taxonomic and skeletal-part abundance in faunal assemblages	Primary observational tally of identified bone specimens per taxon
Oprindelig kilde	Reitz, E. J., & Wing, E. S. (2008). Zooarchaeology (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521673938	Reitz, E. J., & Wing, E. S. (2008). Zooarchaeology (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521673938
Aliasser	Faunal Quantification, Measures of Taxonomic Abundance, Faunal Abundance Estimation, Bone Quantification	NISP, Identified Specimen Count, Faunal Fragment Count, Specimen Tally
Relaterede	3	2
Resumé	Zooarchaeological quantification is the set of methods used to convert a pile of identified animal bones into estimates of how abundant each taxon and each body part was in a faunal assemblage. No single number does the job: the discipline relies on a family of complementary measures — the number of identified specimens (NISP), the minimum number of individuals (MNI), the minimum number of skeletal elements (MNE), the minimum animal units (MAU), and biomass estimates from allometric regression. Each captures a different facet of abundance and carries its own biases, so analysts compute several and interpret them against one another. The synthesis by Reitz and Wing codifies these measures for working zooarchaeologists, while Lyman's taphonomic treatment exposes how fragmentation, recovery, and density-mediated attrition distort every one of them.	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.