Ivan CALANDRA, Konstantin BOB, Gildas MERCERON, François BLATEYRON, Andreas HILDEBRANDT, Ellen SCHULZ-KORNAS, Antoine SOURON, Daniela E. WINKLERPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"
<p>The scale-sensitive fractal analysis (SSFA) of dental microwear textures is traditionally performed using the software Toothfrax. SSFA has been recently integrated to the software MountainsMap® as an optional module. Meanwhile, Toothfrax support has ended. Before switching to the new module, the outputs between the two software packages must be compared for consistency.</p>
<p>We have performed such a test using Bayesian modelling on three datasets including dental surfaces of sheep (Merceron, Ramdarshan, et al., 2016) and guinea pig (Winkler, Schulz-Kornas, Kaiser, Cuyper, et al., 2019) from controlled feeding experiments, as well as surfaces of quartzite and flint flakes used in an actualistic archeological experiment on cleaning procedures (Pedergnana, Calandra, Bob, et al., 2020).</p>
<p>We found that the two software packages calculate significantly different values for the SSFA parameters <em>epLsar</em>, <em>Asfc</em>, <em>HAsfc9</em> and <em>R2</em>, even when the same settings are used. Nevertheless, the treatments (different diets or cleaning procedures) are discriminated similarly within each dataset.</p>
<p>While the new software module is as good as the original software to differentiate treatments, our results imply that the outputs from the two software packages are not directly comparable and, as such, cannot be merged. Surface texture analysts should therefore consider re-analyzing published surfaces before integrating them in their studies. </p>
Bayesian models, dental microwear texture analysis, scale-sensitive fractal analysis, software comparison, tooth wear, use-wear analysis
Peter Ungar [pungar@uark.edu], Christopher Brown [brown@wpi.edu], Danielle Macdonald [danielle-macdonald@utulsa.edu], James Stemp [jstemp@keene.edu], Samuel Arman [sam.arman@flinders.edu.au], Larisa DeSantis [larisa.desantis@vanderbilt.edu], Mark Purnell [map2@leicester.ac.uk], Matthew Mihlbachler [mmihlbac@nyit.edu], Mark Teaford [mteaford@touro.edu], Antony Borel [antony.borel@mnhn.fr], Juan José Ibáñez [ibanezjj@imf.csic.es], Niccolo Mazzucco [niccolo.mazzucco@unipi.it]
No need for them to be recommenders of PCIArchaeology. Please do not suggest reviewers for whom there might be a conflict of interest. Reviewers are not allowed to review preprints written by close colleagues (with whom they have published in the last four years, with whom they have received joint funding in the last four years, or with whom they are currently writing a manuscript, or submitting a grant proposal), or by family members, friends, or anyone for whom bias might affect the nature of the review - see the code of conduct
