Tooth chipping can reveal the diet and bite forces of fossil hominins - PubMed (original) (raw)

Tooth chipping can reveal the diet and bite forces of fossil hominins

Paul J Constantino et al. Biol Lett. 2010.

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.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

(a) Photograph of antemortem chips on teeth of Paranthropus robustus. (b) Schematic of enamel chip geometry. Scale bar, (a) 4 mm.

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

(a) Plot of chip dimension h relative to tooth diameter D for a variety of living species and fossil hominins. Values of h and D are from individual chips (excluding small chips, h < 0.1 mm). Note upper limit h/D ≈ 0.30. (b) Plot of maximum chipping force _P_max from equation (3.1) using averaged molar diameter D versus _P_jaw from jaw mechanics. Solid line is a least squares best fit (red circle, P. boisei; red square, P. robustus; red triangle, A. afarensis; red diamond, A. africanus; inverted triangle, Homo erectus; blue circle, Homo sapiens; blue triangle, Gorilla spp.; blue square, Pongo spp.; blue diamond, Pan troglodytes; blue inverted triangle, Macaca spp.).

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Braun S., Bantleon H. P., Hnat W. P., Freudenthaler J. W., Marcotte M. R., Johnson B. E.1995A study of bite force, part 1: relationship to various physical characteristics. Angle Orthod. 65, 367–372 - PubMed
    1. Chai H., Lawn B. R.2007A universal relation for edge chipping from sharp contacts in brittle materials and its use as a simple means of toughness evaluation. Acta Mater. 55, 2555–2561 (doi:10.1016/j.actamat.2006.10.061) - DOI
    1. Chai H., Lee J. J.-W., Kwon J.-Y., Lucas P. W., Lawn B. R.2009A simple model for enamel fracture from margin cracks. Acta Biomater. 5, 1663–1667 (doi:10.1016/j.actbio.2008.11.007) - DOI - PubMed
    1. Constantino P. J., Wright B. W.2009The importance of fallback foods in primate ecology and evolution. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 140, 599–602 (doi:10.1002/ajpa.20978) - DOI - PubMed
    1. Demes B., Creel N.1988Bite force, diet, and cranial morphology of fossil hominids. J. Hum. Evol. 17, 657–670 (doi:10.1016/0047-2484(88)90023-1) - DOI

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources