Dental wear patterns in Homo antecessor suggest their diet included gritty foods like underground plants contaminated with soil or bone marrow, rather than primarily meat, because meat causes less...
Mechanism
Synthesis from 1 study
The teeth of Homo antecessor show lots of tiny scratches because they ate foods mixed with dirt or plant grit, not just meat. These hard particles scraped against their teeth every time they chewed, and over time, the scratches added up. Meat doesn’t scratch teeth nearly as much, so the scratches...
Most probable mechanism
When food contains hard, gritty particles like dirt or plant silica, chewing grinds these particles against the outer surface of teeth, leaving tiny scratches that build up over time. These scratches are not caused by meat, which is softer, but by harder materials that scrape the tooth enamel with each bite, creating a lasting record of what was eaten.
Hard, brittle, or exogenous abrasive particles such as quartz grit, phytoliths, or bone fragments become mixed into the food bolus during ingestion and chewing.
During mastication, these particles exert mechanical forces in the milli-Newton range on the buccal enamel surfaces of premolars and molars, far below the force needed to fracture enamel but sufficient to cause micro-abrasion.
The abrasive particles indent and shear the enamel surface, producing linear microscratches with orientations aligned to the direction of food movement, such as from the chewing surface toward the gum line.
Repeated exposure to such particles over time leads to the cumulative accumulation of scratches, forming a durable microwear pattern that reflects long-term dietary habits rather than single meals.
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
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The diet of the first Europeans from Atapuerca
Contradicting (0)
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