Studies of evolution in high-redshift galaxies have focused generally on either analyses of morphological characteristics, or on analyses of integrated colors using spectral synthesis techniques. While morphological studies often point the way forward, only rarely do they probe the underlying physics of galaxy evolution. On the other hand, studies of integrated colors are also limited, because galaxies are not homogeneous systems. Galaxy evolution can be described as a series of punctuated star-formation episodes whose imprints are recorded in distinct stellar populations (such as the disk and bulge), so studies which resolve these stellar populations are required in order to understand the mechanisms through which galaxies are built-up and evolve.
Therefore it seems that the important next step in understanding the history of galaxies is to unify morphological studies with stellar evolution modelling. In this section we present preliminary results from just such a morphophotometric analysis of the "chain galaxy" population. We have chosen to focus on this subset of the high-redshift peculiar galaxy population in this article because the controversy surrounding these systems is a perfect encapsulation of the theme of this meeting. In their discovery paper, Cowie and collaborators [7] claimed to have found a significant new young population of galaxies at high redshifts. This claim was immediately disputed [9]. Dalcanton & Shectman (1996) claim that chain galaxies are simply the distant counterparts to local edge-on low surface-brightness spiral galaxies. Can the internal colors of these systems shed light on the nature of these objects?