ABSTRACT
Bunn and Kroll’s (1986a:431–452) analysis of the fauna from the Zinjanthropus floor in Olduvai Gorge makes three major points. The first of these is that because Bunn’s (1982b) bone counts do not correspond to the values I used in my analysis of the Oldowan faunas (Binford 1981a) my arguments should be dismissed. In their Table 2, they compare my values with the MNE and MALI values based on their observations. Because Leakey (1971:276) did not distinguish between mandibular and maxillary teeth, I calculated MNE values for the total suite of teeth present in an animal’s head and used the result as an indicator of variation among sites in the frequency of heads. They report the frequencies of mandibular versus maxillary teeth and conclude that many mandibles and few maxilla are represented. Using MNE values for mandibular teeth, they produce an MAU value of 38.0, while I reported one of 13.07 using total teeth as an indicator of number of heads present. There is no implication of error in this demonstration; Bunn and I counted different things and, not surprisingly, got different results.
