Fossil teeth from Homo antecessor show more and shorter scratches than those from Homo heidelbergensis and Iberian Neanderthals, indicating that their food was tougher to chew, possibly because they...
Mechanism
Synthesis from 1 study
Homo antecessor ate tough, gritty foods that hadn't been cooked or softened, so tiny rock and plant bits kept scraping their teeth every time they chewed. This created lots of short scratches instead of fewer long ones, leaving a clear mark on their teeth that shows they didn't have the tools or...
Most probable mechanism
When people eat tough, gritty foods that haven't been softened by cooking or tools, tiny rock and plant particles get crushed between their teeth. Each time they chew, these hard bits scrape and scratch the outer surfaces of their back teeth. Over time, lots of these small scratches build up, making the tooth surface look covered in fine lines. If the food is especially gritty and not cooked, the scratches are more numerous and shorter because the particles are constantly rubbing in quick, sharp motions instead of sliding smoothly.
Hard, abrasive particles such as quartz grit, silica phytoliths, or bone fragments become embedded in food during consumption and are not removed by processing techniques like cooking or grinding.
During mastication, these particles exert milli-Newton-scale forces on the buccal enamel surfaces of premolars and molars, inducing localized indentation and shearing.
The repeated mechanical interaction between abrasive particles and enamel generates linear microscratches with orientations aligned to the direction of jaw movement, primarily occlusal-to-cervical.
Without food softening, the frequency and intensity of particle-enamel contact increase, leading to higher scratch density and reduced average scratch length due to shorter, more abrupt abrasive events.
Over months to years, these microscratches accumulate into a durable, long-term microwear signature that reflects the mechanical properties of the habitual diet.
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
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The diet of the first Europeans from Atapuerca
Contradicting (0)
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