השוואת שיטות

	מספר מינימלי של פרטים	ניתוח מרקם שחיקת שיניים מיקרוסקופית
תחום	ארכאולוגיה	ארכאולוגיה
משפחה	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
שנת המקור	1953	1988
הוגה השיטה	Theodore White	Peter Teaford
סוג	Faunal quantification method	Dietary inference method
מקור מכונן	White, T. E. (1953). A method of calculating the dietary percentages of various food animals utilized by aboriginal peoples. American Antiquity, 19(4), 396-398.	Ungar, P. S. (2007). Evolution of the human diet: The known, the unknown, and the unknowable. Oxford University Press.
כינויים	MNI method, minimum individual number	microwear analysis, dental wear analysis
קשורות	4	4
תקציר	Minimum number of individuals (MNI) is a quantitative zooarchaeological method that estimates the minimum number of animals represented in a faunal assemblage based on the frequency of unique skeletal elements. Developed by Theodore White in 1953, it is one of the most widely used techniques for analyzing animal bone assemblages from archaeological sites. The MNI method helps archaeologists understand hunting and butchering patterns, interpret subsistence practices, and assess the diversity of fauna exploited by past human populations.	Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is a method that reconstructs diet and dietary behavior from microscopic wear patterns on the surfaces of teeth. Pioneered by Mark Teaford in the 1980s, DMTA analyzes the three-dimensional texture of wear patterns produced as food is chewed. The method reflects short-term (last few months) dietary composition, complementing longer-term dietary information obtained from stable isotope analysis. DMTA has proven powerful for distinguishing diets rich in tough/fibrous foods from those dominated by hard/brittle foods.