The potential applications of microCT scanning in the field of archaeobotany are only just beginning to be explored. The imaging technique can extract new archaeobotanical information from existing archaeobotanical collections as well as create new archaeobotanical assemblages within ancient ceramics and other artefact types. The technique could aid in answering archaeobotanical questions about the early histories of some of the world’s most important food crops from geographical regions with amongst the poorest rates of archaeobotanical preservation and where ancient plant exploitation remains poorly understood. This paper reviews current uses of microCT imaging in the investigation of archaeobotanical questions, as well as in cognate fields of geosciences, geoarchaeology, botany and palaeobotany. The technique has to date been used in a small number of novel methodological studies to extract internal anatomical morphologies and three-dimensional quantitative data from a range of food crops, which includes sexually-propagated cereals and legumes, and asexually-propagated underground storage organs (USOs). The large three-dimensional, digital datasets produced by microCT scanning have been shown to aid in taxonomic identification of archaeobotanical specimens, as well as robustly assess domestication status. In the future, as scanning technology, computer processing power and data storage capacities continue to improve, the possible applications of microCT scanning to archaeobotanical studies will only increase with the development of machine and deep learning networks enabling the automation of analyses of large archaeobotanical assemblages.

microCT 扫描在考古植物学领域的潜在应用才刚刚开始被探索。成像技术可以从现有的考古植物收藏中提取新的考古植物信息，并在古代陶瓷和其他文物类型中创建新的考古植物组合。该技术可以帮助回答有关世界上一些最重要粮食作物的早期历史的考古植物学问题，这些作物来自考古植物保存率最低的地理区域，并且对古代植物的利用仍然知之甚少。本文回顾了目前 microCT 成像在考古植物学问题以及地球科学、地质考古学、植物学和古植物学相关领域研究中的应用。迄今为止，该技术已被用于少数新方法研究中，从一系列粮食作物中提取内部解剖形态和三维定量数据，其中包括有性繁殖的谷物和豆类，以及无性繁殖的地下储存器官。 USO）。 microCT 扫描产生的大型三维数字数据集已被证明有助于对考古植物标本进行分类鉴定，并可靠地评估驯化状况。未来，随着扫描技术、计算机处理能力和数据存储能力的不断提高，随着机器和深度学习网络的发展，实现大型考古植物组合分析的自动化，microCT扫描在考古植物学研究中的应用只会越来越多。