## Reports: MNE (Minimum Number of Elements)

The York System includes two MNE reports, one based on context data, the other on phase data (for information on MNE, see Reitz and Wing 1999, 215-221). These are generated by using the zone information that has been recorded. For a specific species and element, within each phase or context, the number of occurances of each zone is determined and displayed. Then, the MNE value is displayed, which is the greatest of these values.

For example, the image below is a portion of an MNE report:

The species displayed is cattle, and it is divided into elements. The row of numbers and letters displayed in bold is the zone 'name'. The row of numbers below this shows the number of occurances of each zone. Then, the MNE value to the left, beside the element name, is the greatest value, or the minimum number of elements that must be present.

This calculation takes into consideration the 'count' value recorded, but it does not consider the potential differences between left and right (nor age, size, pairing, skeletal frequency, etc.). The output is kept simple, as seen above: for example, the astragalus only has zones 1 to 4 and yet '0' is recorded for zones 5 to K. However, these reports can be easily imported into Microsoft Excel, by selecting Tools | Office Links | Analyze It with MS Excel, or by selecting the Excel button as illustrated at left. When imported into Excel, the user can modify the report output however they see fit. For reference, the total number of zones in each element are listed here. It is important to consider what each zone represents - for example, zones are used to record teeth and mandibular bone, which you may wish to consider separately during analysis, particularly the difference between M1, M2 and M1/M2 which may incorrectly influence MNE counts. Again, the distal metapodial zone 'A' represents unsided condyles and must be taken into consideration when interpreting MNE calculations produced by this report.

More experienced users may wish to generate queries and reports from Excel itself, which can query a database quite comprehensively and output to a spreadsheet. This is done by opening Excel and selecting Data | Get External Data | New Database Query.... For further information, refer to the Office help files.

Technically, these reports are based on a series of queries that generate a hidden table called 'zonestrings', which is then used to create the reports. Because of the complexity involved, on slower computers it may take some time to open the reports.