Computer-assisted morphometry: A new method for assessing and distinguishing morphological variation in wild and domestic seed populations

Morphometry is the science of measuring two-dimensional and three-dimensional aspects and parameters of object morphology, including size, shape, and tomography. Compared to conventional measurement, computer-assisted morphometry is exponentially faster, more accurate, more precise, and more efficient while providing a substantially broader spectrum of measurements of morphological parameters. Objective quantification replaces subjective, perception-based typology in the analysis of variation. Morphometric data from seed reference populations representing more than 1,000 taxa were used to study patterns of morphological variation and to assess related analytical assumptions and basic protocols. Many assumptions about the nature of seed morphology were found suspect and current minimum standards for representative reference seed types and control populations are inadequate and unreliable. Standard plots of area size distributions of wild and domestic seed populations revealed a consistent difference in histogram shape. Conventional descriptive statistical values were insensitive to the differences. Subjecting the histograms to morphometric shape measurements revealed specific shape factors that provided consistent values sensitive to the difference. A new quantitative method for distinguishing wild and domestic seed populations based on measurements of the shape of the distribution of morphological variation, rather than on typology or increase in mean size, was developed and initially tested. It is potentially applicable to the assessment of archaeological seed assemblages in studies of the history of ethnobotany and especially agriculture