Abstract—Studies of human forms using traditional methodsonly show minimal variations. However, advances in imageanalysis and statistics have resulted to highly quantitativedescriptions of detailed variations. To be able to describedetailed variations and to understand the human face oftribes practicing consanguineous marriages like theSama-Banguingui tribe, landmark-based geometricmorphometrics was used. Selected purebreed individuals (25males and 21 females) of the tribe participated in the study.Face images were landmarked using the 28 anatomicallandmarks defined in this study. Relative warps scoresgenerated were used for the analysis of shape variations.Visualization of variations was done using histograms andboxplots. Results showed minor differences in the shapes ofthe whole face in RW2 and RW3 but not in RW1, RW4,RW5 and RW6 where variations observed were notsignificantly different. The similarity in the facial characterswithin and between sexes observed in this study could beattributed to common ancestry and possibly due toconsanguinity. This study have shown that the tools ofgeometric morphometrics can be used for detailedquantification of variations in shapes of morphologicalstructures.

Index Terms—Landmarks, geometric morphometrics,relative warps, Sama Banguigui.

Cite: Olive S. Anies, Mark Anthony J. Torres, Muhmin Michael Manting, and Cesar G. Demayo, "Landmark-Based Geometric Morphometrics in Describing Facial Shape of the Sama-Banguingui Tribe from the Philippines", Journal of Medical and Bioengineering, vol. 2, no. 2, pp.131-136, 2013. doi: 10.12720/jomb.2.2.131-136