The Anthropology of Modern Human Teeth: Dental Morphology and its Variation in Recent and Fossil Homo sapiens

Description

All humans share certain components of tooth structure, but show variation in size and morphology around this shared pattern. This book presents a worldwide synthesis of the global variation in tooth morphology in recent populations. Research has advanced on many fronts since the publication of the first edition, which has become a seminal work on the subject. This revised and updated edition introduces new ideas in dental genetics and ontogeny and summarizes major historical problems addressed by dental morphology. The detailed descriptions of 29 dental variables are fully updated with current data and include details of a new web-based application for using crown and root morphology to evaluate ancestry in forensic cases. A new chapter describes what constitutes a modern human dentition in the context of the hominin fossil record.

G. Richard Scott is Foundation Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has written two books and edited two books on dental morphology and anthropology. At his passing in 2013, Christy G. Turner II was Regents Professor Emeritus in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. He wrote books on dental morphology, cannibalism and violence in the prehistoric Southwest, and cave taphonomy in Siberia. Grant C. Townsend is Emeritus Professor at Adelaide Dental School. He has received the Distinguished Scientist Award in Craniofacial Biology from the International Association for Dental Research, and has published books in the field of human growth and development. Maria Martinon-Torres is a Reader in Paleoanthropology at University College London. She has studied some of the most relevant fossil dental samples from Eurasia, from the Pleistocene sites of Atapuerca to the earliest Homo sapiens in China.

'This is the second edition of The Anthropology of Modern Human Teeth: Dental Morphology and its Variation in Recent Human Populations (1997). Scott and Turner, authors of the first edition, studied dental variants and the two major patterns of Mongoloid dental variation, Sundadont and Sinodont, were described. Their dental trait evaluation system, the ASUDAS (Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System), has become an essential tool for dental anthropological researchers worldwide. In the first edition, morphological variations in dental traits were described. In the second edition, the ontogenetic, genetic and evolutionary aspects of these traits have also been covered. The authors also describe how advances in dental studies will become even more dramatic over the next twenty years. This is a classic text that is well written, beautifully illustrated and extensively referenced, and it will undoubtedly become a compass for younger researchers responsible for the next generation of dental anthropological research.' Shintaro Kondo, Nihon University, Japan 'Twenty years was well worth the wait. The authors' expertise complement each other perfectly while paying tribute to the late Christy Turner whose circum-Pacific research inspired so many to take up the buff yellow plaques. Revised and updated with new information on dental genetics and hominin dentition, The Anthropology of Modern Human Teeth provides a soup to nuts history of the field of dental morphology, while also providing clear guidance on future prospects. Its completeness provides the novice dental anthropologist with all that is needed to begin, and the expert a much needed survey and summary of the last six decades of work. From forensic applications, to multiscalar bioarchaeological research, to the intricacies of hominin crown and EDJ morphology, there is something here for everyone with even a passing interest in what teeth can tell us about the past and present.' Christopher Stojanowski, Arizona State University