Abstract
Diet plays an incontrovertible role in primate evolution, affecting anatomy, growth and development, behavior, and social structure. It should come as no surprise that a myriad of methods for reconstructing diet have developed, mostly utilizing the element that is not only most common in the fossil record but also most pertinent to diet: teeth. Twenty years ago, the union of traditional, anatomical analyses with emerging scanning and imaging technologies led to the development of a new method for quantifying tooth shape and reconstructing the diets of extinct primates. This method became known as dental topography.
Highlights
We recommended using at least four topographic metrics, in conjunction with tooth size,[6,41,62] as there are some aspects of dietary ecology captured by tooth size and not tooth shape
This framework was used to reconstruct the diet of H. naledi: similarities in Dirichlet normal energy (DNE) and Orientation patch count rotated (OPCR) implied that H. naledi's diet had similar fracture properties to the other hominins, but differences in Relief index (RFI), PCV, and tooth size implied that its diet was more abrasive.[42]
6.7 | What role does grit and dust play in molar shape?
Summary
Note: Others (e.g., cusp and basin volume) have been, but are no longer used. An additional program, Dental Toolkit, will soon be available for dental topographic analysis. We recommended using at least four topographic metrics (for sharpness, complexity, relative tooth/crown height, and morphological wear resistance), in conjunction with tooth size (as it increases the predictive power of dental topography),[6,41,62] as there are some aspects of dietary ecology captured by tooth size and not tooth shape (e.g., maximum bite force) This framework was used to reconstruct the diet of H. naledi: similarities in DNE and OPCR implied that H. naledi's diet had similar fracture properties to the other hominins, but differences in RFI, PCV, and tooth size implied that its diet was more abrasive.[42]. No studies have investigated modern human variation in dental topography
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