Abstract
This paper introduces a method to measure the average shape of handaxes, and characterize deviations from this average shape by taking into account both internal and external information. In the field of Paleolithic archaeology, standardization and symmetry can be two important concepts. For axially symmetrical shapes such as handaxes, it is possible to introduce a simple appropriate shape representation. We adapt a parameterized deformable model based approach to allow flexibility of shape coverage and analyze the similarity with a few compact parameters. Moreover a hierarchical fitting method ensures stability while measuring global and local shape features step-by-step. Our model incorporates a physics-based framework so as to deform due to forces exerted from boundary data sets.