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Skull analysis is the main tool used in anthropology to identify several characteristics such as ancestry, sex, and variations between populations. Yet, skull analysis methods used by anthropologists still rely heavily on direct manipulation and measurement of the skulls producing significant inter and intra observer errors. Direct manipulation also involves risks of damaging the specimens while handling. In recent years computer methods for skull analysis that rely on 3D models of skulls acquired with a 3D scanner have been proposed. This approach gives the possibility to perform analysis otherwise not possible, simultaneously easing the overall process of skull analysis and reducing variability. This paper describes the development of automatic and semi-automatic methods for morphological analysis of 3D skull models through the extraction and classification of structures aiming to support the estimation of ancestry. Results with fifty specimens are presented

The morphological and metric methods used by anthropologists to assess ancestry can generate results with low repeatability besides damaging the specimens while handling. These problems have led to the development of a new approach based on skulls acquisition with a 3D scanner, using the resulting models to make measurements and morphological analyzes in the CraMs application (Craniometric Measurements). This paper focuses on the development of new methods for the morphological analysis, and the extraction and classification of structures with the objective of reducing inter and intra observer variability. The final aim is to ease the process of estimating the individual's ancestry.