Quantitative methods used in the analysis of the charred plant remains
	What is measured	Analysis	Interpretation
Charcoal densities	density in cm3/l	comparison of mean densities	assessment of high or low densities - may indicate the frequency of use of fire (or the efficiency of cleaning debris from fires), the degree of dilution/mixing of deposits (etc.)
Counts of taxa	numbers of seeds per taxon	correspondence analysis	relationships between suites of taxa and context - patterns may indicate differential use of plant materials (etc.)
Ratios of crop taxa	ratios of numbers of wheat and barley grains and chaff	comparison of high and low ratios	assessment of the dominance of certain crop taxa as an indication of harvesting/processing/preparation techniques (etc.)
Preservation Indices	preservation of individual seeds of one taxon scored on a 0-4 scale	comparison of mean PI	assessment of high or low PI's - may reflect the effects of taphonomic processes i.e. as a result of differential attrition or wear (etc.)
Fragmentation Indices	ratio of numbers of fragments to numbers of whole seeds for one taxon	comparison of mean FI	assessment of high or low FI's (as for Preservation Indices)