COMPUTERISED BONE TEMPLATES'

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COMPUTERISED BONE TEMPLATES.
This PowerPoint introduces an approach to the
recording of graphical zooarchaeological data
that has been described in the presentation as
originally published at www.archaeographica.com/te
mplates in May 2006. It is designed to illustrate
the concept as detailed in the presentation but
should you be interested and want to examine the
approach further, actual templates are available
together with instructions to carry out
evaluation routines on your own computer.

• Click your mouse button to move through this
  presentation.

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The basis of the approach are digital templates,
one for each of the individual skeletal elements.
These have been created both in colour, black and
white versions as well as a simple outline of the
bone, all of which may be used interchangeably to
suit the preferences of the user. Examples of
each of these types of template for the Goat Left
Femur follow.
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The templates have been created at a large scale
so that a user can zoom into detail if required
and if necessary produce good prints of the whole
template or parts of it to illustrate particular
detail.
The next slide shows a portion of the template at
the actual size.
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Part of the template at actual size.
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The graphical data (for example, a fragment of
bone or butchery marks) are recorded by drawing
in transparent layers which overlay the
template(s). For example, to record this fragment
for all the views the following would be drawn.
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When complete the template would look like this
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However only the detail of the fragment is saved
each fragment that is recorded in a separate file.
Similarly any butchery marks are recorded again
in separate layers and stored in their own files.
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When all the graphical data (fragments and
butchery marks) has been recorded and saved, they
can be recombined in various grouping or
combinations to identify distribution patterns or
analyse in other ways.
The following sequence illustrates the
aggregation of 10 fragments that have been
recorded to determine a MNI from the overlaps
that occur. Note that although there are 10
fragments the true MNI would be 5.
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Of these 10 fragments, 8 had butchery marks
identified on them these were similarly
recorded. Using a simple identification of
marks, green for cut and red for chop (although
recording conventions could be much more
detailed), the following sequence aggregates the
marks on the left femur template to attempt to
identify a patterning to their distribution.
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The capability to zoom means that distributions
can be examined more easily. The link from
this graphical format to a numeric one for these
data is the next step which will provide much
more powerful methods of analysis.
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Hopefully this brief introduction will have
illustrated the potential of the approach, not
just for recording and examining data of a
graphical nature but also as a basis for
recording compatibility. If you wish to undertake
evaluation of the approach on your own computers
a number of templates and instructions can be
obtained by contacting the author at
templates_at_archaeographica.com or by using the
websites contact form http//www.archaeographica.
com/templates/contact.html
gtgt/28th May 2006.