Minimum number of individuals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Minimum number of individuals, or MNI, refers to the fewest possible number of people or animals in a skeletal assemblage.

This is often used in forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology to determine an estimate of how many people or animals are present in a cluster of bones — which is useful for a number of reasons. If a mass grave has three people as its MNI it might be called into question as being a mass grave, even though it could have more than three. However, if it contains the remains of no fewer than ten people, that could strengthen a legal case or provide additional context for archaeological excavation.

While there are formulae that can be applied to determining MNI, it is essentially a logic game. If there are three examples of a right humerus, then obviously that implies there were at least three individuals. If those all three happen to be male, and there is a clearly female skull, then that adds one more to the MNI, and so on.

In osteoarchaeology and zooarchaeology the principle of the minimum number of individuals was defined by the ethnologist of North America T.E. White in 1953[citation needed]. The principle of MNI accounts for each possible individual human or animal as an individual unit in the most parsimonious way, meaning to count the least number of individuals in an archaeological site. An example of this is if there were two femurs, a left and a right, then the MNI=1. If there were two left femurs the MNI=2.

For more information on the applications of determining MNI, refer to bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, osteology, or zooarchaeology.


 This article relating to archaeology is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../m/i/n/Minimum_number_of_individuals.html"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.