Abstract
Previous research provides a method for reducing the subjectivity in taxonomic identification of species in the family Bovidae by quantifying the occlusal surface of molar teeth using elliptical Fourier analysis. In this current study, we specifically test what effect medium to late tooth wear has on the identification of bovids when using the form (size and shape) of the occlusal surface to classify specimens. To achieve this, the classification results of teeth with ≥85% of their occlusal surface (training data set) were compared with the results of teeth with <85% of their occlusal surface (test data set) due to wear. In the training data set, all tribes classified correctly >87% of the time with both Alcelaphini and Reduncini classifying correctly >90% of the time. The worn teeth in the test data set classified correctly at lower rates, but all tribes still collectively had a good classification accuracy (>60%) with classification of Alcelaphini and Tragelaphini at >75% and Reduncini at >65%. Hippotragini classified correctly 50% of the time and Neotragini 42%. The one worn Bovini tooth in the test data set was classified as that of a Hippotragini. The classification rates of teeth with medium to late wear were lower than the unworn teeth, but not so low as to suggest that this methodology for identifying bovid teeth is inappropriate for worn teeth, especially when supplementary to other methods.
 Significance:
 
 Worn teeth can be taxonomically identified by performing elliptical Fourier analysis on the occlusal surface of their teeth.
 While teeth with medium to late wear correctly classify at lower rates than relatively unworn ones, the methodology is a valuable supplement to other methods for taxonomically identifying bovid teeth. Worn teeth of the tribes Alcelaphini and Tragelaphini classify at the highest rates.
 
 Open data set: 
 https://github.com/gjm112/TeethWear
Highlights
Fossil remains from the family Bovidae, such as antelopes and buffalo, are used frequently to reconstruct past environments.[1,2,3,4] Bovid teeth, in particular isolated bovid teeth, are some of the most common fossils found in the southern African record
In the training data set, all tribes classified correctly more than 87% of the time, with both Alcelaphini and Reduncini classifying over 90% correctly (Tables 2 a nd 4)
Lower rates of classification accuracy were found for the worn teeth, but all of the tribes combined had a classification accuracy of more than 60%, with Alcelaphini (n=36) and Tragelaphini (n=5) both at more than 75% and Reduncini (n=12) at over 65% (Tables 3 and 4)
Summary
Fossil remains from the family Bovidae, such as antelopes and buffalo, are used frequently to reconstruct past environments.[1,2,3,4] Bovid teeth, in particular isolated bovid teeth, are some of the most common fossils found in the southern African record. Taxonomic identification of bovid teeth is often difficult because of overlap in their shape and size Biasing factors such as sex, age-at-death and degree of occlusal (chewing surface) attrition often result in considerable overlap in absolute and relative tooth size, thereby complicating taxonomic identification.[4] taxonomic diagnoses of some bovid teeth often do not extend beyond broad levels such as the tribe or family.[3,5,6,7,8,9,10] the overlap in tooth shape and/or size often leads to interobserver error as researchers cannot reliably compare the faunal lists produced by different analysts. Vrba[6], Wells and Cooke[11], and Reed[12] reported varying identifications and subsequently concluded different palaeoenvironmental reconstructions for Makapansgat, South Africa
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