Morphometrics, humans

Morphometrics is the study of the size and shape of objects in two or three dimensions. Traditional morphometrics usually involves analysis of linear measurements that accurately describe the overall form of similar objects in repeatable ways. These measurements contain scaling information (size) and, when compared to other dimensions, information about shape. In recent decades, biological anthropologists have increasingly turned to geometric morphometrics (GM) as a means of analyzing and visualizing shape variation among primate specimens. GM operates on the geometric comparison of configurations of landmarks (Cartesian coordinates). Such methods are routinely used to describe and analyze skeletal variation in anthropology, and provide data for more complex analyses of biodistance, taxonomy, phylogenetics, and mechanobiology.