Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Neandertal Behavior as Inferred from Incisor Microwear Texture Analysis

University Of Arkansas, Fayetteville AR

Investigators

Abstract

Neandertal fossils from Europe and the Near East provide a rich source of data for the investigation of this hominin's behavior. Their teeth are especially important, although much about them remains unexplained. Perhaps the most distinctive enigma is the unusual wear pattern found on the incisors. The most commonly accepted explanation for the excessive gross wear and labio-lingual (cheek-tongue) rounding is non-dietary use of the anterior teeth. This was inferred by analogy from ethnographic accounts of Alaskan Eskimo and Canadian and Greenland Inuit populations that used their front teeth as tools. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possible causes of Neandertal anterior tooth wear using dental microwear texture analysis. Point clouds of microscopic wear surfaces of anterior teeth of Neandertals, early anatomically modern humans that overlapped these extinct hominins in time, and comparative bioarcheological human groups with documented subsistence behaviors will be created using a white-light scanning confocal profiler. These will be analyzed using the scale-sensitive fractal analysis computer software packages Toothfrax and SFrax. Five variables will be measured, each describing different aspects of microwear surface textures. Climatic models and stable isotope data will then be integrated with the microwear data to reconstruct anterior tooth use behaviors of Neandertals. Studies of dental microwear on the anterior teeth of Neandertals and early anatomically modern humans will facilitate the reconstruction of tooth use behaviors, and help identify differences and similarities between these groups. The baseline series used to relate patterns of incisor wear to use will be the most comprehensive of its type to date, and will allow for the inference of diet and anterior tooth use in other fossil hominins as well as other bioarcheological populations. The broader impacts of this study include: This doctoral dissertation research project will contribute to the academic training of a female graduate student in an EPSCoR state. Research experience will be provided for undergraduates and minority high school students in an Upward Bound pre-college advancement program.