Archaeophenomics of ancient domestic plants and animals using geometric morphometrics : a review

Abstract

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.

ZooMS confirms geometric morphometrics species identification of ancient sheep and goat

“…Archaeological sheep and goat dental remains can prove difficult to identify to the species level [38,40,42,43,112,113]. This study is a new contribution toward analyses dedicated to understanding the [47], to explore in more depth the separate evolution of sheep and goat through time, and follow their socio-economic and cultural roles in past animal husbandry. Such studies require secure identification and quantification which, particularly for large scale assemblages, is best accomplished through integrating molecular and non-molecular methodologies.…”

“…Being able to identify isolated third molars, that often remain unidentified in archaeozoology, allows new perspectives for further research. It is now possible to use the powerful and non-invasive quantitative tools of geometric morphometrics, via archaeophenomics [ 47 ], to explore in more depth the separate evolution of sheep and goat through time, and follow their socio-economic and cultural roles in past animal husbandry. Such studies require secure identification and quantification which, particularly for large scale assemblages, is best accomplished through integrating molecular and non-molecular methodologies.…”

“…Geometric morphometrics (GMM) is more and more used in bioarchaeology [ 47 ]. This series of analytical tools is based on the multivariate statistical analysis of set of Cartesian coordinate data allowing us to explore in-depth morphometric variation [ 48 ].…”

考古遗址中农作物种子/果核表型性状研究述评

“…几何形态测 量法通过采集同源性一致的地标点或轮廓线数据, 获 取研究对象的几何形状信息, 结合多元统计分析方 法、数字图像技术等手段量化形态特征, 实现形态的 可视化 [32] . 在植物表型几何形态测量中, 以使用轮廓法 (outline analyses)中的椭圆傅里叶变换法(elliptic Fourier transforms, EFT)(针对标志点较难确定的植物)为主, 还有部分为通过获取地标点(landmarks)和半标点 (semi-landmarks)的普氏叠印分析法(generalized Procrustes analysis, GPA) [33,34] .…”

Geometric Morphometrics sheds light on the systematics affinities of two enigmatic dwarf Neotropical sedges (Carex, Cyperaceae)

“…These effects are translated to the origin, scaled to unit-centroid size, and rotated via a generalized least-squares algorithm that enables their alignment along a common coordinate system ( Rohlf and Slice 1990 ) resulting in the removal of the extraneous information of landmark´s size and orientation ( Savriama 2018 ). GM are powerful analytic tools in constant development that offer a new way of studying species evolution ( Savriama 2018 ), systematics ( Liu et al 2018 ; Menini Neto et al 2019 ), and even phylogeography ( Terral et al 2004 , 2012 ) or ecology ( García-Jain et al 2022 ) and archaeophenomics ( Evin et al 2022 ) by collecting and comparing the morphology of organisms. GM studies in plants have been implemented with ancient plant organs ( Terral et al 2004 , 2012 ), functional traits ( Van der Niet et al 2010 ; Neustupa and Nemcova 2022 ), and floral symmetry ( Chen et al 2018 ; Savriama 2018 ).…”