2017/12/07 by Christopher Woods, Christianne Fernée, Martin Browne +2 · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Mathematics · Social Sciences · #Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies #Morphological variations and asymmetry #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0186754
openalex publication_date 2017/12/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
This paper introduces statistical shape modelling (SSM) for use in osteoarchaeology research. SSM is a full field, multi-material analytical technique, and is presented as a supplementary geometric morphometric (GM) tool. Lower mandibular canines from two archaeological populations and one modern population were sampled, digitised using micro-CT, aligned, registered to a baseline and statistically modelled using principal component analysis (PCA). Sample material properties were incorporated as a binary enamel/dentin parameter. Results were assessed qualitatively and quantitatively using anatomical landmarks. Finally, the technique's application was demonstrated for inter-sample comparison through analysis of the principal component (PC) weights. It was found that SSM could provide high detail qualitative and quantitative insight with respect to archaeological inter- and intra-sample variability. This technique has value for archaeological, biomechanical and forensic applications including identification, finite element analysis (FEA) and reconstruction from partial datasets.