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1- , alirezazadeh.mahdi@gmail.com
Abstract: (57 Views)
Quantitative variables can be used to describe human-modified skulls, similar to many archaeological findings. Eleven modified skulls from the 5th Millennium BCE were found during excavations at Chega Sofla, and 60 normal skulls from contemporary Khuzestan residents were analyzed using hierarchical cluster analysis. Six indices were used to describe each skull based on ten quantitative variables. The indices were selected to be sensitive to flattening of the frontal, occipital, and parietal bones, as well as changes in the maximum length, breadth, and height of the cranium. The accuracy and efficiency of this method in classifying and distinguishing modified skulls from normal skulls were evaluated. An increase in the sample size, including ancient and modern normal skulls from Khuzestan, was considered. The success of the explanatory variables in describing response variables was also assessed. The modified skulls from Chega Sofla were separated from ancient and modern normal skulls using this method, and based on the selected variables, they formed a distinctive category. A slight deformation was observed in the BG1.02 specimen, where only the squamous part of the occipital bone was flattened. The different morphologies of the modified BG6.01 skull compared to those of the other modified skulls were also discernible. These findings suggest that the explanatory variables effectively describe the skulls. With an increase in the sample size from 29 skulls to 71 skulls, the results were replicated, confirming the appropriate selection of explanatory variables and highlighting the robustness of the present method against variations in sample size. Moreover, the proposed classification is independent of researcher-dependent biases. Finally, it should be noted that this dimension's data matrix can be analyzed in an R project environment within a few seconds.
Keywords: Modified skulls, Cluster analysis, Chega Sofla, Craniometry, Skull classification, Quantitative variables
Technical Note: Original Research |
Subject:
Archaeometry
Received: 2024/12/14 | Accepted: 2025/01/19 | Published: 2025/03/10 | ePublished: 2025/03/10
Received: 2024/12/14 | Accepted: 2025/01/19 | Published: 2025/03/10 | ePublished: 2025/03/10
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