Food needs to live on broken downwards inwards the oral fissure earlier it tin post away live on swallowed in addition to digested further. How this is existence done depends on many factors, such as the mechanical properties of the foods in addition to the morphology of the masticatory apparatus. Palaeoanthropologists pass a slap-up bargain of their fourth dimension reconstructing the diets of our ancestors, as diet holds the primal to agreement our evolutionary history. For example, a high-quality diet (and meat-eating) probable facilitated the development of our large brains, whilst the lack of a nutrient-rich diet in all likelihood underlies the extinction of another species (e.g., P. boisei). The diet of South African hominins has remained especially controversial however.
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| Paranthropus robustus fossil from South Africa SK 46 (discovered 1936, estimated historic current 1.9-1.5 i thou one thousand years) and the virtually reconstructed outset upper tooth used inwards the analyses [Credit: Kornelius Kupczik, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology] |
Paranthropus robustus, dissimilar whatsoever of the other species analysed inwards this study, exhibits an odd orientation, i.e. "twist", of the tooth roots, which suggests a slight rotational in addition to back-and-forth drive of the mandible during chewing. Other morphological traits of the P. robustus skull back upwards this interpretation. For example, the construction of the enamel also points towards a complex, multidirectional loading, whilst their odd microwear blueprint tin post away conceivably also live on reconciled amongst a different jaw drive rather than past times mastication of novel nutrient sources. Evidently, it is non entirely what hominins ate in addition to how difficult they flake that determines its skull morphology, only also the agency inwards which the jaws are existence brought together during chewing.
The novel written report demonstrates that the orientation of tooth roots inside the jaw has much to offering for an agreement of the dietary ecology of our ancestors in addition to extinct cousins. "Perhaps palaeoanthropologists convey non e'er been bespeak the correct questions of the fossil record: rather than focusing on what our extinct cousins ate, nosotros should as pay attending to how they masticated their foods", concludes Gabriele Macho of the University of Oxford.
Molar root variation inwards hominins is thus telling us to a greater extent than than previously thought. "For me as an anatomist in addition to a dentist, agreement how the jaws of our fossil ancestors worked is real revealing as nosotros tin post away eventually apply such findings to the modern human dentition to ameliorate sympathise pathologies such as malocclusions", adds Viviana Toro-Ibacache from the University of Republic of Chile in addition to i of the co-authors of the study.
The findings are published inwards Royal Society Open Science.
Source: Max Planck Society [August 28, 2018]
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