dental microwear
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PeerJ ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. e12635
Author(s):  
Katrin Weber ◽  
Daniela E. Winkler ◽  
Ellen Schulz-Kornas ◽  
Thomas M. Kaiser ◽  
Thomas Tütken

Experimental approaches are often used to better understand the mechanisms behind and consequences of post-mortem alteration on proxies for diet reconstruction. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is such a dietary proxy, using dental wear features in extant and extinct taxa to reconstruct feeding behaviour and mechanical food properties. In fossil specimens especially, DMTA can be biased by post-mortem alteration caused by mechanical or chemical alteration of the enamel surface. Here we performed three different dental surface alteration experiments to assess the effect of common taphonomic processes by simplifying them: (1) tumbling in sediment suspension to simulate fluvial transport, (2) sandblasting to simulate mechanical erosion due to aeolian sediment transport, (3) acid etching to simulate chemical dissolution by stomach acid. For tumbling (1) we found alteration to be mainly dependent on sediment grain size fraction and that on specimens tumbled with sand fractions mainly post-mortem scratches formed on the dental surface, while specimens tumbled with a fine-gravel fraction showed post-mortem formed dales. Sandblasting (2) with loess caused only negligible alteration, however blasting with fine sand quartz particles resulted in significant destruction of enamel surfaces and formation of large post-mortem dales. Acid etching (3) using diluted hydrochloric acid solutions in concentrations similar to that of predator stomachs led to a complete etching of the whole dental surface, which did not resemble those of teeth recovered from owl pellets. The experiments resulted in post-mortem alteration comparable, but not identical to naturally occurring post-mortem alteration features. Nevertheless, this study serves as a first assessment and step towards further, more refined taphonomic experiments evaluating post-mortem alteration of dental microwear texture (DMT).


Author(s):  
Paweł Dąbrowski ◽  
Michał Jerzy Kulus ◽  
Joanna Grzelak ◽  
Cyprian Olchowy ◽  
Tomasz Staniowski ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Emilie Berlioz ◽  
Charlotte Leduc ◽  
Emilia Hofman-Kamińska ◽  
Olivier Bignon-Lau ◽  
Rafał Kowalczyk ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Kristin L. Krueger ◽  
Evan Chwa ◽  
Alexandria S. Peterson ◽  
John C. Willman ◽  
Alex Fok ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 20200085 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Berthaume ◽  
Kornelius Kupczik

Diet is a driving force in human evolution. Two species of Plio-Pleistocene hominins, Paranthropus robustus and Australopithecus africanus , have derived craniomandibular and dental morphologies which are often interpreted as P. robustus having a more biomechanically challenging diet. While dietary reconstructions based on dental microwear generally support this, they show extensive dietary overlap between species, and craniomandibular and dental biomechanical analyses can yield contradictory results. Using methods from anthropology and engineering (i.e. anthroengineering), we quantified the molar biomechanical performance of these hominins to investigate possible dietary differences between them. Thirty-one lower second molars were 3D printed and used to fracture gelatine blocks, and Bayesian generalized linear models were used to investigate the relationship between species and tooth wear, size and shape, and biomechanical performance. Our results demonstrate that P. robustus required more force and energy to fracture blocks but had a higher force transmission rate. Considering previous dietary reconstructions, we propose three evolutionary scenarios concerning the dietary ecologies of these hominins. These evolutionary scenarios cannot be reached by investigating morphological differences in isolation, but require combining several lines of evidence. This highlights the need for a holistic approach to reconstructing hominin dietary ecology.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (180) ◽  
pp. 20210139
Author(s):  
Nicole L. Ackermans ◽  
Daniela E. Winkler ◽  
Ellen Schulz-Kornas ◽  
Thomas M. Kaiser ◽  
Louise F. Martin ◽  
...  

Dietary reconstruction in vertebrates often relies on dental wear-based proxies. Although these proxies are widely applied, the contributions of physical and mechanical processes leading to meso- and microwear are still unclear. We tested their correlation using sheep ( Ovis aries , n = 39) fed diets of varying abrasiveness for 17 months as a model. Volumetric crown tissue loss, mesowear change and dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) were all applied to the same teeth. We hereby correlate: (i) 46 DMTA parameters with each other, for the maxillary molars (M1, M2, M3), and the second mandibular molar (m2); (ii) 10 mesowear variables to each other and to DMTA for M1, M2, M3 and m2; and (iii) volumetric crown tissue loss to mesowear and DMTA for M2. As expected, many DMTA parameters correlated strongly with each other, supporting the application of reduced parameter sets in future studies. Correlation results showed only few DMTA parameters correlated with volumetric tissue change and even less so with mesowear variables, with no correlation between mesowear and volumetric tissue change. These findings caution against interpreting DMTA and mesowear patterns in terms of actual tissue removal until these dental wear processes can be better understood at microscopic and macroscopic levels.


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