Analysis of scratch patterns on ancient aurochs teeth from 120,000 years ago suggests all the animals died in the same season, probably summer, when they ate mostly woody plants, which may reflect...
Mechanism
Synthesis from 1 study
When all the aurochs ate the same tough, woody plants during a short time of year, their teeth got the same kind of scratches. That’s why the wear looks so similar. But this doesn’t prove humans killed them all at once — the bones suggest they were hunted at different times.
Most probable mechanism
When animals eat mostly tough, woody plants during a short time of year, their teeth get similar scratches from the same type of food. If all the animals died during that same season, their teeth will look alike. But if they ate different things at different times, their teeth would show more varied wear.
Dietary intake of fibrous, woody vegetation during a narrow seasonal window generates consistent abrasive forces on enamel surfaces.
Repeated mechanical abrasion from consistent food texture produces uniform scratch patterns on tooth enamel over weeks to months.
Absence of dietary variation across individuals within a population results in low inter-individual microwear variability.
Temporal clustering of death events during the same season preserves this uniform microwear signature in the fossil record.
Less supported by current evidence, but not ruled out
If all the teeth were buried and preserved under similar environmental conditions, the wear patterns might have been made to look more alike by physical processes after death, not because the animals ate the same food.
Post-depositional sediment pressure and chemical alteration alter surface microtopography of enamel.
Differential erosion or abrasion during fossilization masks original microwear diversity.
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (0)
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Contradicting (1)
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Archaic humans in the Middle Palaeolithic Levant conducted planned and selective intercepts of aurochs, but not mass hunting
Gold Standard Evidence Needed
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