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.