The long and winding road: identifying pig domestication through molar size and shape

摘要: The ability to document the effects of domestication from archaeological remains animals and plants is essential for reconstructing history one most important transitions in human prehistory – shift hunting gathering farming. In mammals, teeth are well preserved known be taxonomically informative. this study, we compare three sets dental morphometric descriptors wild domestic pigs (Sus scrofa) maximum length, size shape variables 2D geometric morphometrics order assess which provides best correctly distinguish current West Palaearctic pigs. For purpose, used predictive linear discriminant analysis with cross-validation taking into account potential bias due heterogeneous sample sizes number predictors. Classification accuracy status ranged between 77.3 93% depending tooth descriptor analyzed. However, individual posterior probabilities correct classification were appreciably smaller when using length centroid compared variables. Size appeared a poor indicator status, contrary addition high degree confidence versus predictions. Our results indicate that offers an extremely powerful alternative more traditional biometric approaches width measurements capture elusive morphological changes induced by process remains.