Virtual techniques have become increasingly important in the field of biological anthropology in the last years and are seen as an excellent alternative to classic methods mainly because they reduce the risk of damaging osteological collections and original fossils. The present work emerges in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic that spread across the world in 2020. The subsequent global crisis forced researchers to stay home: museums were closed, visits for data collection were cancelled, and access to institutions that hold software licenses was restricted. This unprecedented situation had a high impact on the scientific performance of many scientists whose research directly depends on access to these infrastructures and materials. This brought the importance of the use of open resources to the fore, as mainly those researchers who were familiar with license-free software and open repositories were capable of keeping up with their investigations during lockdown. The aim of this work is to try to give some answers to the following question: is it possible to conduct entirely virtual anthropological research only using open resources? For this purpose, we briefly summarize the history of virtual anthropology and the workflow (i.e. data collection, data analysis, data sharing), detailing examples of previous virtual anthropology works based on open source software and offering open and free resources for each work step. Lastly, we emphasize the revolution that the rise of the free software R entails for the present and the future in the field of virtual anthropology.

Comunicación a Congreso del 90th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists que tuvo lugar en del 7 al 28 de abril de 2021

Peer reviewed