Tooth chipping can reveal the diet and bite forces of fossil hominins |
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| Authors: | Paul J Constantino James J-W Lee Herzl Chai Bernhard Zipfel Charles Ziscovici Brian R Lawn Peter W Lucas |
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| Institution: | 1.Department of Anthropology, Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA;2.Ceramics Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA;3.School of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel;4.Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research and Institute for Human Evolution, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa |
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| Abstract: | Mammalian tooth enamel is often chipped, providing clear evidence for localized contacts with large hard food objects. Here, we apply a simple fracture equation to estimate peak bite forces directly from chip size. Many fossil hominins exhibit antemortem chips on their posterior teeth, indicating their use of high bite forces. The inference that these species must have consumed large hard foods such as seeds is supported by the occurrence of similar chips among known modern-day seed predators such as orangutans and peccaries. The existence of tooth chip signatures also provides a way of identifying the consumption of rarely eaten foods that dental microwear and isotopic analysis are unlikely to detect. |
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| Keywords: | dietary reconstruction hominid dentition fracture |
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