Geometric Morphometrics on the Spot: When Artifact Shape Tells Us More of Prehistoric Lithic Variability in São Paulo State, Brazil

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This presentation contemplates the application of a method of analysis for the study of artifact shape named geometric morphometrics (GM). GM is a quantitative method originated in the biological sciences with a large application in evolutionary biology for the analysis of organismal form. Evolutionary archaeologists have been employing this approach to material culture studies mainly for the last 10 years and the use of GM has seen much increase particularly in lithic studies, allowing archaeologists to address questions regarding cultural phylogenies, classification, human dispersal, ecology, etc. In this occasion we attempt to present preliminary results of the doctoral project under development by the first author, featuring GM analysis of lithic bifacial points and unifacial tools of hunter-gatherer groups from southeastern Brazil. This research is embedded in a cultural evolutionary framework and its main goal is to characterize the morphological variability of the two classes of formal lithic artifacts abovementioned within São Paulo State (southeastern Brazil). Results attest that GM is an effective tool to show diversity of shape and size of bifacial points and unifacial tools in distinct areas of São Paulo, despite a great overlap of shape observed among the sets of artifacts analyzed so far.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36513.0