What Teeth Reveal about Human Evolution
Cambridge University Press, 9/22/2016
EAN 9781107442603, ISBN10: 1107442605
Paperback, 294 pages, 23.1 x 15.4 x 1.5 cm
Language: English
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, this book 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.
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.