What Teeth Reveal About Human Evolution

About this book

Over millions of years in the fossil record, hominin teeth preserve a high-fidelity record of their own growth, development, wear, chemistry and pathology. They yield insights into human evolution that are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve through other sources of fossil or archaeological data. Integrating dental findings with current debates and issues in palaeoanthropology, What Teeth Reveal About Human Evolution shows how fossil hominin teeth shed light on the origins and evolution of our dietary diversity, extended childhoods, long lifespans, and other fundamental features of human biology. It assesses methods to interpret different lines of dental evidence, providing a critical, practical approach that will appeal to students and researchers in biological anthropology and related fields such as dental science, oral biology, evolutionary biology, and palaeontology.

Contents

Introduction

Part I. Teeth and Australopiths:
1. March of the bipeds: the early years
2. Dentally derived dietary inferences: the australopiths
3. Curious canines
4. Incisive insights into childhood

Part II. Teeth and the Genus Homo:
5. March of the bipeds: the later years
6. Dentally derived dietary inferences: the genus Homo and its diminishing dentition
7. Long in the tooth: life history changes in Homo
8. Knowing Neanderthals through their teeth
9. Insights into the origins of modern humans and their dental diseases
10. Every tooth a diamond

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Biography

Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg is Professor of Anthropology and Courtesy Professor of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology at Ohio State University. She has conducted extensive research on fossil hominin teeth across Africa, Europe and Asia, and has published widely in the fields of dental palaeoanthropology and dental primatology.