Unveiling Shape and Size Diversity: A Geometric Morphometric Perspective on Holocene Formal Lithic Artifacts in São Paulo State, Southeastern Brazil

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Geometric Morphometric Methods (GMM) stand as a robust analytical approach originating from evolutionary biology, designed to quantify and assess variations in the shapes of biological specimens. Over the past fifteen years, archaeologists have increasingly employed GMM to scrutinize the shape diversity of archaeological artefacts. Particularly prevalent in evolutionary archaeology and lithic studies, GMM facilitates researchers in making inferences about cultural evolution, technological advancements, and the diffusion of ideas or practices in ancient societies. This presentation shares the findings from the doctoral research of the primary author. This research, situated within a cultural evolutionary framework and Cultural Transmission Theory, focuses on describing and contrasting the morphological variability of lithic bifacial points and lithic unifacial tools from hunter-gatherer groups in São Paulo State, Southeastern Brazil, during the Holocene. The ultimate goal is to show how GMM effectively highlights variations in lithic artefacts. While there is significant overlap in the shapes of both bifacial points and unifacial tools across the various regions of São Paulo State, unifacial tools generally exhibit a predominantly elliptical outline. There seems to be no cultural pressure to preserve specific unifacial tool shapes. It is also plausible that bifacial points possess a stronger stylistic significance compared to unifacial tools.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52531