Geometric morphometrics revolutionized domestication studies through the precise quantification of the phenotype of ancient plant and animal remains. Geometric morphometrics allow for an increasingly detailed understanding of the past agrobiodiversity and our ability to characterize large scale ancient phenotypes has led to what can be named archaeophenomics : the large scale phenotyping of ancient remains. This review describes advances in the bioarchaeological study of domesticated species and their wild relatives where their phenomes are quantified through geometric morphometrics. The two main questions addressed by archaeophenomics are i) taxonomic identification, including domestication signature, and ii) the inference of the spatio-temporal agrobiodiversity dynamics. Archaeophenomics is a growing field in bioarchaeology of domestic species that will benefit in the near future from advances in artificial intelligence and from an increasing interest in multiproxy approaches combining morphometric data with e.g. isotopes or archaeogenomics.

Since its Neolithic domestication in the Fertile Crescent, barley has spread to all continents and represents a major cereal in many modern agrarian systems. Current barley diversity includes thousands of varieties divided into four main categories corresponding to 2-row and 6-row subspecies and naked and hulled types, each of them with winter and spring varieties. This diversity is associated to different uses and allow cultivation in diverse environments. We used a large dataset of 58 varieties of French origin, (1) to assess the taxonomic signal in barley grain measurements comparing 2-row and 6-row subspecies, and naked and hulled types; (2) to test the impact of the sowing period and interannual variation on the grains size and shape; (3) to investigate the existence of morphological differences between winter and spring types; and finally (4) to contrast the relationship between the morphometric and genetic proximity. Size and shape of 1980 modern barley caryopses were quantified through elliptic Fourier Transforms and traditional size measurements. Our results indicate that barley grains record morphological diversity of the ear (89.3% classification accuracy between 2-row/6-row subspecies; 85.2% between hulled and naked type), sowing time of the grains (from 65.6% to 73.3% within barley groups), and environmental conditions during its cultivation and varietal diversity. This study opens perspectives for studying archaeological barley seeds and tracing the barley diversity and evolution since the Neolithic.

Geometric morphometrics revolutionized domestication studies through the precise quantification of the phenotype of ancient plant and animal remains. Geometric morphometrics allow for an increasingly detailed understanding of the past agrobiodiversity and our ability to characterize large scale ancient phenotypes has led to what can be named archaeophenomics : the large scale phenotyping of ancient remains. This review describes advances in the bioarchaeological study of domesticated species and their wild relatives where their phenomes are quantified through geometric morphometrics. The two main questions addressed by archaeophenomics are i) taxonomic identification, including domestication signature, and ii) the inference of the spatio-temporal agrobiodiversity dynamics. Archaeophenomics is a growing field in bioarchaeology of domestic species that will benefit in the near future from advances in artificial intelligence and from an increasing interest in multiproxy approaches combining morphometric data with e.g. isotopes or archaeogenomics.