What Teeth Reveal about Human Evolution

Explores the insights that fossil hominin teeth provide about human evolution, linking findings with current debates in palaeoanthropology.

Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg (Author)

9781107082106, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 September 2016

294 pages, 41 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.7 cm, 0.6 kg

'… This highly accessible book has drawn from a wide range of recent findings and publications and presents it in a manner which would definitely appeal to a mixed audience. Reading through, there is a strong sense of narrative, which takes the reader on a seemingly informal tour through hominin dentary science. With this open style and coverage of current literature, this book has appeal to readers from a broad range of specialisms …' Ben Garrod

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.

Subject Areas: Human biology [PSX], Primates [PSVW79], Developmental biology [PSC], Evolution [PSAJ], Life sciences: general issues [PSA], Biology, life sciences [PS], Anthropology [JHM], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Archaeology [HD]