Dental Wear in Immature Late Pleistocene European Hominines

Abstract

The relationship between dental attrition (nine stage scale) and specimen age, or functional age of teeth, is compared between immature Middle Paleolithic (Neanderthal specimen count=28, tooth count=165) and Upper Paleolithic (anatomically modern specimen count=54, tooth count=338) samples. All specimens are from Western Europe. Maturation rate is treated as the same for both samples for analytical purposes and evaluated in terms of the results. Analysis of reduction in crown volume with age indicates that the wear rate for the posterior permanent (P4–M3) and primary teeth (dm2) does not differ between the samples; however the anterior primary teeth (di1–dm1) are more worn in the UP sample with age held constant. By contrast, anterior permanent teeth (I1–P3) wear more rapidly in the Neanderthal sample. Similar results are obtained in a comparison of relative attrition.The MP sample of anterior primary teeth lags about a year behind the UP sample in the degree of accumulated wear up to about age 5 years. Thereafter differences disappear. Analysis on the basis of individual specimens (ANOVA) confirms these results with the MP sample of anterior primary teeth significantly older (P=0·0498) at successive wear stages. While the rate of wear of the anterior primary teeth does not differ between the samples, the age of attrition onset differs by about 1 year; age 2 years in the UP sample and 3 in the MP sample. It is concluded that dietary supplementation of infants commences 1 year earlier on average in the UP. Data are insufficient to determine whether the Late and Early Upper Paleolithic samples differ significantly in the study variables. Apart from the finding of earlier onset of dental wear in the UP, the lack of difference in the relationship between age and tooth wear supports a model of similar maturation rates and dietary abrasiveness in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Significantly earlier dietary supplementation of UP infants may have reduced birth spacing through diminished hormonal inhibition of ovulation. These results are compatible with demographic increase in the UP.