摘要
During the last half century,paleontological studies have involved more sophisticated phenomena and processes which cannot be readily described and analyzed by traditional qualitative methods.More than ever paleontological investigations require quantitative approaches,and Numerical Paleontology cannot develop without the application of appropriate statistical software.PAST(PAlae-ontological STatistics),the first freeware for pale-ontology has evolved rapidly,which made itself very important and indispensable to studies of paleontolo-gy,stratigraphy and even modern biology.Starting with a simple introduction to the PAST operational system,this paper explains the 15 most common functions illustrated with paleontological case studies and is divided into two parts:firstly,general statistical methods and multivariate analysis are introduced;and secondly,specific areas such as "diversity,abundance and population structure","morphometric study" and "biostratigraphy" are explained.We also explain how to treat data sets and calculate results in PAST step by step,in the form of a simple manual.Besides the most common functions,the paper also briefly introduces nine relatively uncommon functions for more advanced users.One of the most valuable features of PAST is that it is updated frequently,adjusting to the rapid advances in paleontology and stratigraphy.The paper recommends this powerful software for the routine and specialist analysis of paleontological data.