Diggin' for Data
Research at the Brown Site: 41KR21


The Lab Work
Counting all of these snails can be a daunting job, but don't fret as there's an easy way to deal with them. After you separate out all of the flint, bone and other materials, including as many of the smaller snails as possible, count the snails volumetrically.

Here's how to do volumetric sampling:
Take a cup and fill it with snails, count them and note how many fit into the cup... do this three times and then compute the average. For example, if your counts for 3 cupfills are 180, 184 and 196, your average is the sum of these numbers, divided by three, or 560/3, which equals 187 (rounded off to next whole number). 

You can now count full cups of snails and  multiply times the average!! This saves time and is actually very accurate.

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