Withers Height Long Bone Factor

Apply caller taxon/element-specific animal long-bone calibration with offsets/residual sigma; no embedded species coefficients or human stature inference, and residual bounds exclude length/calibration parameter uncertainty.

Description

Animal withers-height estimates can use taxon- and element-specific long-bone calibrations.

Animal withers-height estimates can use taxon- and element-specific long-bone calibrations. A residual interval describes calibration scatter, distinct from the uncertainty of the measured bone or fitted coefficients.^[1]

When to use Withers Height Long Bone Factor

Use this tool to apply caller taxon/element-specific animal long-bone calibration with offsets/residual sigma; no embedded species coefficients or human stature inference, and residual bounds exclude length/calibration parameter uncertainty.

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 Withers Height Long Bone Factor 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 longBoneLengthsMm, taxonElementCalibrationFactors, calibrationOffsetsMm, calibrationResidualSigmasMm using the field table and calculation rules, then run the tool.
Read modelWithersHeightsMm, calibrationScenarioOneSigmaBoundsMm. 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
longBoneLengthsMm	Long bone lengths mm	list of number	Required
taxonElementCalibrationFactors	Taxon element calibration factors	list of number	Required
calibrationOffsetsMm	Calibration offsets mm	list of number	Required
calibrationResidualSigmasMm	Calibration residual sigmas mm	list of number	Required

Supply 1–128 aligned positive bone lengths and factors, finite offsets and nonnegative residual sigmas, all length quantities in mm. Require positive predicted height. Return heights and one-sigma calibration-scenario bounds; lower bounds are not clipped at zero.

Paired lists must be nonempty and have equal lengths.

height_i = length_i × factor_i + offset_i; bounds = height_i ± residualSigma_i

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

Output field	Meaning	Value type
modelWithersHeightsMm	Model withers heights mm	list of number
calibrationScenarioOneSigmaBoundsMm	Calibration scenario one sigma bounds mm	list of list of number

json

{
  "input": {
    "longBoneLengthsMm": [
      100,
      200
    ],
    "taxonElementCalibrationFactors": [
      2,
      3
    ],
    "calibrationOffsetsMm": [
      0,
      10
    ],
    "calibrationResidualSigmasMm": [
      5,
      10
    ]
  },
  "output": {
    "modelWithersHeightsMm": [
      200,
      610
    ],
    "calibrationScenarioOneSigmaBoundsMm": [
      [
        195,
        205
      ],
      [
        600,
        620
      ]
    ]
  }
}

Limitations and assumptions

Coefficients must be established for the relevant animal taxon and skeletal element. These are animal height estimates, not human stature inference. Bounds exclude measurement and coefficient uncertainty and are not certified confidence intervals.

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 Meat Weight Utility Index: Combine measured element-associated meat/marrow mass using caller weighting and normalize to maximum; these are model utility scores, not recovered food yield or behavioral preference. For a complementary task, use Pathology Prevalence Per Skeleton: Summarize caller-observed skeletal pathology prevalence and Wilson binomial interval on assessable skeletons, retaining unassessable coverage; not living-population disease prevalence or clinical diagnosis.

References

Withers Height Long Bone Factor — tool.io

Similar or alternative tools

Meat Weight Utility Index
Combine measured element-associated meat/marrow mass using caller weighting and normalize to maximum; these are model utility scores, not recovered food yield or behavioral preference.
Pathology Prevalence Per Skeleton
Summarize caller-observed skeletal pathology prevalence and Wilson binomial interval on assessable skeletons, retaining unassessable coverage; not living-population disease prevalence or clinical diagnosis.