Abstract

Dental mesowear is a widely used tool in archaeology and palaeontology for the reconstruction of the overall diet of mammals. This method is based on the characterisation of the height and relief of dental cusps, as they vary according to diet. The use of this method on domestic ungulates presents limitations because (1) currently, very few reference frameworks are available, and (2) the qualitative categorisation of cusps limits our observations and interpretations. In this work, we introduce the analysis of quantitative dental mesowear, based on the measurement of the angle and height of cusps from photographs. The use of this method on 26 present-day domestic sheep with two different feeding strategies showed very significant differences: the group with a dominant rangeland diet has high cusps with acute angles, and the group with a dominant grassland diet has lower cusps with obtuse angles. This method has been compared with the traditional technique of mesowear score, which consists in the qualitative categorisation of cusps into seven categories. However, the analysis showed that mesowear score is more prone to observer error than quantitative mesowear. In addition, quantitative mesowear better reflects the variability in dietary behaviours of extant sheep since observations are not limited into seven categories. To test quantitative mesowear in archaeological samples, we analysed caprine mesowear at two Iron Age sites (sixth-fifth centuries BC) from the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula: Empúries and Ullastret. The results show that caprids at the Ullastret site have a slightly more abrasive diet than at Empúries, which is consistent with data obtained from dental microwear in previous work. Overall, we show the potential of this technique, which can be combined with traditional techniques, to distinguish past caprine feeding strategies.

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