A New Method of Dental Microwear Analysis: Application to Extant Primates and Ouranopithecus macedoniensis (Late Miocene of Greece)

Garcia, Géraldine; Blondel, Cécile; Bonis, Louis de; Koufos, George D.; Viriot, Laurent

doi:10.2110/palo.2004.p04-17

Cited by 136 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…(ii) Microwear analysis The digital capture and the dental microwear analysis are conducted following the procedures shown in Merceron et al (2005). The microwear pattern is composed of nine variables: length of scratches, numbers of fine and wide scratches, numbers of small and large pits, total numbers of microwear of pits, scratches and microwear scars, and percentage of pits (electronic supplementary material, (Conover & Iman 1981).…”

Section: (B) Methods (I) Mesowear Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Ruminant diets and the Miocene extinction of European great apes

et al. 2010

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The successful evolutionary radiations of European hominoids and pliopithecoids came to an end during the Late Miocene. Using ruminant diets as environmental proxies, it becomes possible to detect variations in vegetation over time with the potential to explain fluctuations in primate diversity along a NW-SE European transect. Analysis shows that ruminants had diverse diets when primate diversity reached its peak, with more grazers in eastern Europe and more browsers farther west. After the drop in primate diversity, grazers accounted for a greater part of western and central European communities. Eastwards, the converse trend was evident with more browsing ruminants. These opposite trends indicate habitat loss and an increase in environmental uniformity that may have severely favoured the decline of primate diversity.

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Section: (B) Methods (I) Mesowear Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Ruminant diets and the Miocene extinction of European great apes

et al. 2010

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“…We decided to use a light microscope instead of scanning electron microscope (SEM), because of easier access, affordability and reduced time. Light microscopes have been used successfully in other microwear studies [18,19,24,32]. Note that light microscope results cannot be compared with SEM results directly due to different magnification.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…A feature was categorized as a pit if the ratio of length and width was less than four, and a scratch if the ratio was more than four. Features were categorized to small (length less than 20 mm), large (length 20 -50 mm) or very large (length more than 50 mm) pits [33] and thin (width less than 15 mm) or wide (width more than 15 mm) scratches [32,34]. JMP w Pro 10 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, North Carolina, USA) was used to analyse the results statistically and for visualization.…”

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confidence: 99%

Mechanical modelling of tooth wear

Karme

Rannikko

Kallonen

et al. 2016

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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Different diets wear teeth in different ways and generate distinguishable wear and microwear patterns that have long been the basis of palaeodiet reconstructions. Little experimental research has been performed to study them together. Here, we show that an artificial mechanical masticator, a chewing machine, occluding real horse teeth in continuous simulated chewing (of 100 000 chewing cycles) is capable of replicating microscopic wear features and gross wear on teeth that resemble wear in specimens collected from nature. Simulating pure attrition (chewing without food) and four plant material diets of different abrasives content (at n ¼ 5 tooth pairs per group), we detected differences in microscopic wear features by stereomicroscopy of the chewing surface in the number and quality of pits and scratches that were not always as expected. Using computed tomography scanning in one tooth per diet, absolute wear was quantified as the mean height change after the simulated chewing. Absolute wear increased with diet abrasiveness, originating from phytoliths and grit. In combination, our findings highlight that differences in actual dental tissue loss can occur at similar microwear patterns, cautioning against a direct transformation of microwear results into predictions about diet or tooth wear rate.

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“…The four extant and four extinct hominid genera represented in our analysis are known for exploiting, or are reported to have exploited, respectively, a wide range of food resources in a variety of diverse environments (Fleagle, 2013;Guatelli-Steinberg, 2016;Hartwig, 2002;Merceron et al, 2005;Nelson and Rook, 2016;Scott et al, 2005;Sponheimer and Lee-Thorp, 2015;Ungar, 2007;Ungar and Sponheimer, 2013). Depending on the taxonspecific feeding habits, the time spent feeding may be considered as another variable which, together with food abrasiveness, likely plays a role in the selection of enamel thickness because of dental wear resistance, i.e., adaptation is not only resistance to fracture, but also to prolonged periods of wear to which enamel thickness can be related (Grine and Daegling, 2017;Pampush et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is the deciduous/permanent molar enamel thickness ratio a taxon-specific indicator in extant and extinct hominids?

Zanolli

Bayle

Bondioli

et al. 2017

Comptes Rendus Palevol

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Handled by Roberto Macchiarelli and Clément ZanoliiKeywords: Enamel Dm2 M1 "Diphyodontic index" Hominids abstract In Primates, enamel thickness variation stems from an evolutionary interplay between functional/adaptive constraints (ecology) and the strict control mechanisms of the morphogenetic program. Most studies on primate enamel thickness have primarily considered the permanent teeth, while the extent of covariation in tooth enamel thickness distribution between deciduous and permanent counterparts remains poorly investigated. In this test study on nine extant and fossil hominids we investigated the degree of covariation in enamel proportions between 25 pairs of mandibular dm2 and M1 by a so-called "lateral enamel thickness diphyodontic index". The results did not provide an unambiguous picture, but rather suggest complex patterns likely resulting from the influence of many interactive factors. Future research should test the congruence of the "diphyodontic signal" between the anterior and the postcanine dentition, as well as between enamel and the enamel-dentine junction topography.

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A New Method of Dental Microwear Analysis: Application to Extant Primates and Ouranopithecus macedoniensis (Late Miocene of Greece)

Cited by 136 publications

References 59 publications

Ruminant diets and the Miocene extinction of European great apes

Ruminant diets and the Miocene extinction of European great apes

Mechanical modelling of tooth wear

Is the deciduous/permanent molar enamel thickness ratio a taxon-specific indicator in extant and extinct hominids?

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