Vertaile menetelmiä

	Number of Identified Specimens (NISP)	Zooarchaeological Quantification
Tieteenala	Arkeologia	Arkeologia
Menetelmäperhe	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Syntyvuosi	2008	2008
Kehittäjä	Standard zooarchaeological practice; statistical properties formalized by Donald Grayson and R. Lee Lyman	Elizabeth Reitz & Elizabeth Wing (synthesis); R. Lee Lyman (critical formalization)
Tyyppi	Primary observational tally of identified bone specimens per taxon	Suite of quantitative measures of taxonomic and skeletal-part abundance in faunal assemblages
Alkuperäislähde	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
Rinnakkaisnimet	NISP, Identified Specimen Count, Faunal Fragment Count, Specimen Tally	Faunal Quantification, Measures of Taxonomic Abundance, Faunal Abundance Estimation, Bone Quantification
Liittyvät	2	3
Tiivistelmä	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.	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.