Geometric Morphometrics in Archaeology

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Geometric Morphometrics in Archaeology" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Geometric morphometrics is the quantitative analysis of shape, form, allometry, and asymmetry. The methods of geometric morphometrics enlist shape outlines or specific landmarks, returning multivariate data for statistical analyses, and a rich suite of visualization tools. Given that a primary goal of archaeology is to observe and study variation in the material record of the past, geometric morphometric methods hold remarkable potential for accomplishing this in an objective, and reproducible manner while retaining much of the complexity inherent in the object’s shape. The number of archaeological studies that enlist a geometric morphometric approach remains relatively small but is growing rapidly as a testament to the utility of the approach. New software and analytical packages, which include add-ons and updates to existing software, have increased the accessibility of geometric morphometric methods. Coupled with the increased availability of 3D technology, geometric morphometrics promises to be an important and widely used tool for answering sophisticated and elegant questions related to artifact shape. This session aggregates researchers from a variety of geographical and archaeological domains to address theoretical concepts, novel methods, and procedures, and also includes a series of case studies.