Relative abundances of skeletal specimens and taphonomic analysis of vertebrate remains

Attempts to establish relative frequencies of skeletal parts as distinctive of particular bone accumulating and depositional agents have a deep history in taphonomic research. Various authors have developed a set of mathematically equiualent statistics and equations all of which are meant to measure the relative or percentage frequencies of skeletal parts. None of these clearly accounts for differential fragmentation of skeletal elements in part because the quantitative units used in them are not explicitly defined. Comparisons of frequencies of skeletal parts deposited by different bone-accumulating agents and reported by different analysts may thus be comparisons of differential fragmentation rather than differential deposition of skeletal parts