Bone Root Etching Score Tool

Summarize independently observed root-etching coverage and caller ordinal bands; no automatic mark attribution or physical-damage diagnosis.

Description

Root-etching coverage describes the observed portion of a bone surface affected by an independently identified mark type.

Root-etching coverage describes the observed portion of a bone surface affected by an independently identified mark type. Caller-defined coverage bands turn those measurements into an explicit ordinal score.^[1]

Summarize independently observed root-etching coverage and caller ordinal bands; no automatic mark attribution or physical-damage diagnosis.

When to use Bone Root Etching Score Tool

Use this tool to summarize independently observed root-etching coverage and caller ordinal bands; no automatic mark attribution or physical-damage diagnosis.

Prepare the artifact, site or survey measurements and any independently established calibration or model choices. Keep paired observations aligned and confirm units and coordinate conventions.

How to use Bone Root Etching Score Tool and understand its results

Prepare the artifact, site or survey measurements and any independently established calibration or model choices. Keep paired observations aligned and confirm units and coordinate conventions.
Enter rootEtchedSurfaceAreasMm2, observableBoneSurfaceAreasMm2, callerScoreLowerCoverageFractions using the field table and calculation rules, then run the tool.
Read perBoneEtchedSurfaceFractions, callerEtchingScoreCodes, pooledEtchedSurfaceFraction. The explanation below defines the units, signs, ordering and any flags or placeholder values.
If the tool reports an input issue, correct the values and run it again. Apply the stated assumptions when interpreting a successfully returned result.

Input field	Meaning	Value type; see rules below	Requirement
rootEtchedSurfaceAreasMm2	Root etched surface areas mm2	list of number	Required
observableBoneSurfaceAreasMm2	Observable bone surface areas mm2	list of number	Required
callerScoreLowerCoverageFractions	Caller score lower coverage fractions	list of number	Required

Pair nonnegative etched areas with positive observable areas in mm². Coverage may not exceed one. Supply 2–128 increasing lower coverage edges in [0,1] beginning at zero. Return individual fractions, lower-inclusive zero-based score codes and the pooled area-weighted fraction.

Paired lists must be nonempty and have equal lengths. Each sequence checked for increasing order must contain at least two strictly increasing values.

coverage_i = etchedArea_i/observableArea_i; pooled = ΣetchedArea/ΣobservableArea

Units, indexing, boundary conditions and exceptional cases are defined in the calculation rules above.

Output field	Meaning	Value type
perBoneEtchedSurfaceFractions	Per bone etched surface fractions	list of number
callerEtchingScoreCodes	Caller etching score codes	list of number
pooledEtchedSurfaceFraction	Pooled etched surface fraction	number

json

{
  "input": {
    "rootEtchedSurfaceAreasMm2": [
      1,
      2
    ],
    "observableBoneSurfaceAreasMm2": [
      2,
      8
    ],
    "callerScoreLowerCoverageFractions": [
      0,
      0.2,
      0.5
    ]
  },
  "output": {
    "perBoneEtchedSurfaceFractions": [
      0.5,
      0.25
    ],
    "callerEtchingScoreCodes": [
      2,
      1
    ],
    "pooledEtchedSurfaceFraction": 0.3
  }
}

Limitations and assumptions

Marks must already have been attributed to root etching. Band boundaries are caller policy rather than a universal damage scale, and unobservable surface is outside the denominator.

Numeric inputs must be finite. Follow the calculation-specific rules for overflow, underflow and exceptional cases. Numeric lists are limited to 100,000 entries; the rules above may require smaller limits. Missing required fields, extra fields, wrong value types and violations of the calculation rules are input errors.

Alternative or Complementary methods

Use Cut Mark Count Per Bone Tool: Distinguish count per examined bone, marked-bone prevalence and surface-standardized cut-mark density; observed mark identification remains caller supplied, not inferred butchery behavior. For a complementary task, use Edge Retouch Index: Compute observed linear edge retouch coverage and extreme bounds for missing edge; not scar-depth intensity or a manufacturing/usage diagnosis.

References

Bone Root Etching Score Tool — tool.io

Similar or alternative tools

Cut Mark Count Per Bone Tool
Distinguish count per examined bone, marked-bone prevalence and surface-standardized cut-mark density; observed mark identification remains caller supplied, not inferred butchery behavior.
Edge Retouch Index
Compute observed linear edge retouch coverage and extreme bounds for missing edge; not scar-depth intensity or a manufacturing/usage diagnosis.